Exoborne is striving to be an approachable open-world extraction shooter with a strategic edge: "I don't think there's anything quite like it"

Few genres are more intimidating than the extraction shooter. It's kill or be killed. Die, and you lose everything. You have to use every ounce of skill and guile to survive in a harsh PvPvE environment and scrape by to even keep your hard-earned gear for the next dangerous run. Swedish studio Sharkmob aims to make an extraction game that's more approachable and action-packed with the upcoming Exoborne. I had the opportunity to go hands-on with the game earlier this month and sit down to speak with the studio's art director, Rodrigo Cortes. After about five hours with the game, I have confidence Exoborne is shaping up to be a solid onramp into the historically punishing genre.

"I know a lot of examples of people like that. They lost everything. It's like, 'no, I'm not going back,'" says Cortes. He hopes Exoborne's single-player-inspired elements will push players to jump back in and see more. "We thought there was an opportunity to bring more of the masses to this. That's why we have an art direction that is a little more inviting and triple-A. We have a narrative that usually doesn't happen much in these types of games to get people that are into narrative into these games."

Reborn vs Rebirth

Exoborne is development studio Sharkmob's sophomore title following its battle royale based in White Wolf's World of Darkness tabletop RPG universe, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt ("Crackdown by of battle royale and Blade"), but some of the team has worked together before. The founders and others in the studio were part of Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment. That studio, of course, is known as the developers of Tom Clancy's The Division, which contained my first exposure to extraction gameplay in its Dark Zones. Since then, other games like Escape from Tarkov, Dark and Darker, and the upcoming reinvention of Marathon have adopted the high-risk/high-reward nature of Dark Zones and run with it. But Sharkmob has a more approachable vision for extraction.

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Our demo begins by briefly introducing us to our characters, the Reborn, and their plight against an oppressive corporation called Rebirth, which has doomed humanity. The evil entity has reappeared in Colton County, a fictional region in the American Southeast, which, along with much of the world, is no longer viable to safely live in. Following Rebirth's attempt to subjugate humanity, the company shuts down its towers designed to calm the extreme weather calamities that have wreaked havoc on the land, allowing the climate to spiral again.

"We don't want it to be a sci-fi game, but there are sci-fi elements," Cortes states after I ask about the high-tech nature of the post-apocalyptic world Sharkmob has created. But it's one that's taken inspiration from the real world obfuscation of battlefields and depersonalization of casualties. It makes Rebirth's return particularly ominous. "It's like there is an enemy presence, but you're only meeting autonomous things. They are not even people and that makes it a little bit scarier."

To better sell the devastation that's befallen Exoborne's collapsed America, extensive research was done. Rodrigo traveled to states like Georgia to nail the intangibles of the region, and expressed the importance that the ruined areas of Exoborne feel familiar. He wants to capture the warmth of the Eastern United States and to showcase the humanity he found while visiting. For Cortes, the ruined world needs to feel real: "When you want to destroy something, you need to know what the normal stuff looks like to appreciate the destruction."

The weather disasters that caused all of the destruction are a massive deal. Not only are they central to the story, but the weather constantly and consistently affects how you play. The most splashy weather event is the appearance of tornados, which touch down around the map and let you soar into the skies with your glider. Standard tornados may sweep you up and fling you or, if you time things right, give your glider a much-needed boost to cover more ground. However, they can inherit other maladies like fire or poison, transforming them into a twisting fury of the absorbed element, ruining a run if you're not paying attention. Thick fog will limit how far you can see, rain will impair your gliding, and lightning storms will strike you down if you aren't careful.

Against the elements

To help players survive the dire elements and Rebirth lackeys, not only are they equipped with weapons, and an ever-handy pair of grappling gun and glider, but their characters equip Exo-Rigs, mechanical skeletons that grant special abilities. Rigs all share basic abilities like eliminating fall damage and enhancing stamina to dash for longer periods of time, but different models of Exo-Rigs act like equipping a different class.

Each Exo-Rig design you craft between matches allows for styles of play that genuinely feel different. The Kestral rig emphasizes mobility, allowing players to hover while pressing crouch in the air. A more aggressive player might want to use the sleek Viper model, which has a quick dashing knife strike and rewards downing enemies with health regen. My favorite was the bulky and boxy Kodiak Exo-Rig, that, while feeling slightly sluggish, reduces incoming damage while sprinting and allows for a cool descending ground pound if you find yourself above the enemy. Smartly, each rig has a visual design that's easy to pick out at a distance to know what kind of fight you're in for when a skirmish with other players inevitably breaks out.

The three maps we're let loose in are littered with areas to explore, from rundown shacks and small gatherings of houses to farms filled with enemies, all the way to enemy compounds filled with soldiers and robots. The introductory map is called Maynard, filled with farmlands, swamps, and mostly easy enemies. Here we cut our teeth, trying out the various Exo-Rigs, gathering supplies, and completing the initial quest objectives. To get into higher-difficulty maps – like the snowy Agnesvlle, or the hellish, aptly-named Sinkhole – the combined gear value you bring in has to reach a certain level, which is a fair way the game makes sure you've collected enough high-end equipment to take on the challenge that lies ahead.

After a few rounds, I hit my stride, and I find Exoborne can be downright exhilarating. The gunplay is tight, and I never really feel out of control or like I'm missing shots I should have been landing. Likewise, the mobility options on hand make moving around the map fun and offers improvisation and flexibility in getting around that I wouldn't expect in a game like this. Using the grappling hook, I launch off the nearest elevated point I can find, be that a building, windmill, tree, or electrical tendril emanating from a nearby weather-controlling tower. Once in the air, if the wind has kicked up, I tap the jump button, deploy the glider, and soar hundreds of feet to a new location and scout my surroundings from the sky. It reminds me a bit of getting around in Just Cause. In a good way, of course. It doesn't take much to travel far if the conditions are right, and it generally feels great to get from point A to point B, even if there are a few harrowing moments in between.

Hooked in

Throughout the world, my team runs into all kinds of trouble. Sometimes we strive to take home an artifact, which rewards everyone on the team with multiple items if successfully smuggled out and unlocked. Other times we throw ourselves at a relentless sentient Scarab Tank, which chases us around and spits endless streams of ammunition from its minigun-like weaponry – occasionally calling in reinforcements of robotic walking drones. Luckily, each greater challenge usually resulted in a better weapon or valuable item. But the best rewards usually came from other players we were able to successfully take out and inherit their best gear. Quite a few times, we were on the losing end of those engagements, leaving us having to scrounge together a new Exo-Rig and weapon loadout from our stash to rebuild the collection on the next run.

My favorite moment of the day happened as my team was itching to get out with lives intact and our pockets full of riches. We scramble to the nearest extraction point, only to find another team trying to do the same. An escape aircraft is on the ground, seconds away from taking off and leaving us behind. As it slowly climbs off the ground, I mount a last-ditch effort to get on board. Desperately, I fire my grappling hook into the closing doors of the plane and sling to the core of the cargo hold. Instinctively, I start hammering my melee attack, downing one poor soul before successfully exiting the map with my hard-earned plunder. My teammates were not so lucky, being left in the kill-or-be-killed area below to find their way out. Thankfully for them, they found another spot to extract and we've all escaped with an exciting story to tell.

While Exoborne has its hooks in me now, the long tail of a live service game is what's important. They also have to attract and keep people who aren't already acquainted with a genre that's not the easiest to get into. When asking Rodrigo about why the team wanted to make an extraction shooter, he told me, "We believe that there is a huge potential in this type of game, and we hope that our mix of ideas is appealing to a wide audience. And from what I've seen, I don't think there's anything quite like it." Exoborne is currently set for a playtest from February 12 - 17 and is scheduled to release sometime in 2025.

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