Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment

The enemy gate is down: 5th Cell debuts innovative shooter Hybrid

Hybrid is new IP from the company that brought us Super Scribblenauts, but it …

"What did you think when you found out we were making a shooter?" 5th Cell's cofounder and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka asked me at the Game Developers Conference. I had recently heard the company talk about the need to innovate and create new genres and ideas in each game it makes, so I was aware the new title wasn't just going to be a shooter—the other shoe was about to drop in their upcoming Xbox Live Arcade release.

And drop it did, as Hybrid is the best Ender's Game game that has nothing to do with the books. Here's how 5th Cell turned the third-person shooter genre on its head.

We wanted to make a shooter

Slaczka and company started with the idea that they wanted to make a shooter, and went from there. "It was an organic process, of thinking about what we could bring to the shooter genre," he told Ars. The idea of controlling where a character runs and making the play more tactical is very similar to what we saw in Full Spectrum Warrior—and in fact 5th Cell worked on a portable version of that game—but Slaczka claims that game didn't weigh heavily on their minds.

Here's how it works: you flick the analog stick towards cover, and then tap the A button to run there. You can change your destination mid-run and also aim your fire, but you're not directly controlling how the character moves until they settle into their new location. But by double-tapping the A button, your character can also fly to the ceiling, or the wall, and fight from there. By forcing you to think about where and when you move and how you attack the enemy, the game becomes a little slower, a little more deliberate. If anything, it looks like the Battle Room from Ender's Game, a popular book that describes how one would teach children to wage war.

"I have not read that!" Slaczka told Ars, laughing. He says that multiple people have brought up the connection to him, and he was amused that most game writers talk about the book so quickly after seeing the game.


The game features a persistent war, but the team knew they needed to change how people played shooters in order to stand out. "Why would I play this over Halo, or over Call of Duty? We have to give you reasons to want to play this game," Slaczka said. "We've iterated on this system for over a year, just the movement system. It takes about 20 minutes to learn... if you play it, you find it's very intuitive." 

The constant iteration achieved one goal: making it simpler, always simpler. Flick, and then hit A to move. Hit B to retreat. Tap a direction on the D-pad and hit a button to spawn help.

This "Squad on Command" feature is an interesting twist. If you kill one member of the opposing team, you can spawn an AI-controlled player who fights alongside you, targeting whoever you target and moving with you. Kill two enemies and you can spawn in a soldier controlling a turret, making it easy to lock down a section of the map. Kill three enemies? You can then spawn an assassin that goes out and hunts the other team actively. By fighting and also deploying these NPC characters, you can do a lot to turn the tide of battle.

This is important, as your actions don't just impact the round you're in. You choose a faction when you play the game, and both sides will be fighting in a persistent war... although 5th Cell is waiting to announce more details of this portion of the game.

How does it play?

I was able to play a few rounds of the game, and it's a nasty, tight shooter. You're vulnerable when you move from point to point, and spawning in a second gun to fight alongside you gives you a huge leg-up when you jump into a firefight. Watching the other team zoom through the air to take up position on the ceiling and fire down into an area you thought was fortified is scary, but you always have the tools to counteract what they're doing.

Simply watching the game gives you an idea of how battles play out, and how different and distinct Hybrid feels. Picking a good position, and then using the different weapons to rain death on your opponents is a rush, and the game avoids being the alpha-male twitch-fest that's so common in modern shooters. Thinking comes first, reflexes second.

I asked if the game would be coming to the PC. "There's always a possibility, yeah," Slaczka said, but he wouldn't comment on whether it was being actively developed. For now, the game will appear on the Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year, and we've very excited about what genre 5th Cell will refresh next. Whatever the secret sauce is in the world of gaming, the developer seems to have be given a healthy dose.

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