Snipe at enemies through time loops in Lemnis Gate

In a sea of countless first-person shooters and Overwatch imitators, many studios have tried to differentiate their own shooters by infusing a unique spin to the formula, from the more squad-focused features of Apex Legends to the anti-gravity acrobatics of the much maligned LawBreakers (RIP). Potentially fixing this Lawbreakers-shaped hole in my aching heart is Lenmis Gate, an upcoming FPS that calls itself a “turn-based combat strategy shooter” that will be infusing the “cerebral intricacies of chess into a heart-pounding, 4D FPS”.

If it sounds simultaneously rad and confusing at the same time, it’s because it actually is. Lemnis Gate’s key conceit is that every battle is a series of time loops, made up of five 25-seconds rounds. The twist is that these 25 seconds are the same, and players will take turns to executive an action, be it shooting enemies or stealing objectives. This temporal tampering is the heart of Lemnis Gates, where you’ll be tweaking and altering the timeline. 

If that sounds like you’ll be engaged in an all-out combat against four other players, it doesn’t seem to be the case as Lemnis Gate also has a feature called “auto co-op”, so you’ll be taking control of five heroes at the same time. It all sounds very tactical at the moment, but Lemnis Gate looks set to be a thinking man’s shooter, where you’ll need to plan multiple steps ahead to clinch the upper hand. But without a playthrough, it’s still a little hard to envision how the action will all pan out eventually—and if it’ll quickly descend into a chaotic, unintelligible mess.

Lemnis Gate will be released in summer 2021, but you can learn more about the game on Steam.