You straft left and I’ll straft right
You already knew hectic 1v1 bullet sprayer Straftat was going to add 2v2 matches and a four-player free-for-all mode. You knew because I told you months ago. Don’t pretend you forgot. Please, it’s insulting. Anyway, the update that adds these modes arrived yesterday and it also adds – surprise! – a ton of new maps. Which brings the game’s total number of killing arenas to over 300. Straft THAT, other shooters.
“We’re happy to launch today the official 4 Players Straftat update FOR FREE,” yell developers Lemaitre Bros in an update post on Steam, probably in an effort to be heard over the sound of gunfire. “It includes both 2v2 and Free For All (1v1v1v1). Team matches can be 1v2 and 1v3 as well. This was by far the most requested feature for the game since release back in October. We hope these new gamemodes will meet your expectations.”
I just played a bunch of matches and I left smiling as widely as ever. Having a rando teammate to carry my carpal tunnelled corpse through each burst of low-stakes, quickfire FPS murder certainly helped. The free-for-all matches were just as snappy, and there is a familiar glee in avoiding a straight fight and stealing that last kill with a snipey shot from across the map to win the game. God, it’s wild that video games can just be good, you know? YOU CAN PLAY THIS FOR FREE.
The update also adds a heap of new maps, a practice the developers continue with a frequency that would drive a man to madness. There are ten new free maps, plus an extra 28 maps for DLC owners. Although note that even matching up with someone else who owns the DLC will let you play the maps you don’t have. There are some new weapons too, the devs say, including a “Curved Knife” which boosts jumping, and a couple of fast-firing but low-damage machine guns.
I’ve only devoted a few hours to this shooter, yet I can’t help but recommend it. It is pure, old-school adrenaline administration software. You bumslide and wall run and miss nine out of ten shots in a wild panic when your foe appears around the corner. You can lose and lose and lose, and never care, because a round lasts about 30-60 seconds and how can you get annoyed about ragdolling across the map when you’re already shooting rockets again.