If you've ever wondered what Rainbow Six Siege or Counter-Strike would be like top-down, the latest shooter from PUBG's team is your answer

Nov. 8, 2024

Preview | Project Arc tackles the tactical scene from an all-new perspective

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A top-down shooter, Project Arc is a 5v5 multiplayer game inspired by PUBG. Like its battle royale sibling, strategic vision is as prized as quick reflexes, with the result being a mish-mash ofRainbow Six Siegeand Counter-Strike. But given how important your line of sight is here, this is the first shooter where I’d rather have a protractor glued to my rifle instead of a silencer.

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In the hour or so I’ve played of Project Arc, its two available modes have painted the game in very different lights. The first, Team Deathmatch, is almost arcade-y in its chaos. The map I played on – a sprawling mansion with a mix of narrow corridors, side rooms, and wide-open gardens – made it very clear that in this game, vision is king. Each character moves fairly slowly and can only shoot if their gun is being aimed, which means you’re forced to either clear corners at a plodding pace or risk sprinting into a shootout unprepared.

This, in tandem with everyone having low health, means there’s a massive emphasis on getting the drop on your opponent. Anything beyond your narrow field of view is shrouded in shadow, which means tactics that seize the element of surprise – such as holding a tight corner with a shotgun or sniping down a lengthy flanking route – are brutally effective. A straight line indicates where you’re able to shoot, but this doesn’t simplify things as much as you might think: there’s also verticality to account for, as your scroll wheel determines whether you’re aiming high or low. Aim at head-level, and your shots will sail over anyone crouched down. Crouch down yourself, though, and you’ll be unable to see or shoot over waist-high barriers like windows or planters.

In Team Deathmatch, this depth translates to absolute carnage. Trying to kill an opponent is one thing, but doing so in a cramped corridor without blowing the head off your teammate is another matter entirely.

In those first matches I permanently crab-walked around with an SMG, preying on anyone who came around corners too quickly. 90% of my deaths came from opponents doing the same thing to me, with the rest being head-to-head firefights so messy that both parties come away feeling a bit embarrassed.

These top-down shenanigans work much better in Project Arc’s round-based “Standard” mode, in which both teams take turns to plant or defuse a bomb across two sites. If it sounds familiar, it should: it’s the same game mode popularized by Counter-Strike, Valorant, and Rainbow Six Siege. In practice, it’s closest to the latter: you choose operators with unique gadgets and weapons, select wood-paneled walls are destructible and can be reinforced, and attackers choose which part of the map will be their spawnpoint for the round. Here, the aerial perspective shines. As the defender trying to hold an abandoned hospital, it’s incredibly tense hearing enemies scuttle around outside – while most of my screen sits in darkness – waiting to see where they’ll break in from. Sometimes I’d get lucky and they’d breach the exact boarded-up window I had my shotgun pointed at. Other rounds, I’d be killed without ever knowing they were in the building.

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Brilliantly, the emphasis on line of sight means outthinking your opponent often pays off. As an attacker, I found myself using a sniper to blow a hole in a wooden barricade, then one-shotting whoever came to investigate. Defending, I’d hide one operator’s proximity mines below open windows and sprawl barbed wire beneath others to annoy the living daylights out of the other team. I found better living through bastardry – and although a “correct” meta will inevitably shore up around launch, Project Arc’s learning curve feels quite steep.

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