Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff got his hands on this free-to-play multiplayer online shooter at PAX East. Is it worth checking out? Read on to find out!

The Penny Arcade Expo has become an important convention for Red 5 Studios. The team officially unveiled Firefall at PAX Prime in September 2010, and they just showed off the first playable demo at PAX East over the weekend. I stopped by the massive booth to get my hands on the free-to-play multiplayer online shooter, and it's safe to say that fans of the genre should give it a try when it launches later this year.

Just to make it clear, this game is going to be free-to-play. It will be supported by an item shop, but Lead Designer Scott Youngblood emphasized that the team doesn't want players to be able to “buy power.” Once we had the pricing model details out of the way, it was time for me to get an overview of the game and dive into some combat.

Firefall is set in a future where humans have to fight back both the threat of the Chosen army and a powerful force called the Melding. This storyline comes into play in the game's vast open world, which is where you can complete missions to gain experience and unlock new gear.

Youngblood said that the game features “robust dynamic missions,” and gave the example of a town being attacked and taken over by the Chosen. You'll lose access to vendors while the town is occupied by the enemy, so you'll need to take it back with brute force.

Armies fulfill the role of guilds in Firefall. You can help advance your army by collecting and refining resources. Also, armies have access to custom warpaint colors and can design their own logos to stand out in tournaments.

While players will level characters, join guilds and explore an open world, Youngblood seemed wary of attaching the MMO tag to the game:

"I hesitate to use the phrase 'true MMO' because there's a certain connotation when you use that. For me, MMOs are all about going through zones and completing quests, and when I'm done with that zone I'll move to a different one. That's not what Firefall is like. We have a shared open world that you constantly care about. You want to fight to protect it."

Team Deathmatch Demo

The playable demo didn't include the game's open world, but it did showcase another important aspect of Firefall: PvP maps. Youngblood said that army vs. army tournament-style play is a major feature in the game, and he mentioned that Red 5 plans to let players broadcast their own commentary using the spectator mode.

Everyone at the Firefall booth was playing team deathmatch on the Sunken Harbor map. While the map is instanced to keep the teams even, the Sunken Harbor can actually be found in the open world, which allows players to learn the map as they complete missions.

The demo gave players the option to choose between three battleframes: Assault for offensive damage, Medic for healing, and Recon for sniping. The Recon battleframe made its debut at PAX East, and more battleframes will be unveiled and added in the future.

"Our battleframe designs are geared toward satisfying high twitch skill all the way down to low twitch skill. We wanted to make Firefall accessible to as many people as possible,” Youngblood said.

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