DarkSwarm opens a second closed alpha on November 3, with thousands of enemies on screen
Bitfire Games is running another closed alpha for its top-down co-op shooter on November 3, and used the Big Break Showcase to show the swarm technology it says can handle thousands of enemies at once.
DarkSwarm is going back into closed alpha. Bitfire Games announced at Coffee Stain's Big Break Showcase that the next test starts on November 3, and sign-ups are open now through the game's own site.
The swarm is the point
The showcase segment focused on the technology the game is named after: Bitfire says its swarm system supports thousands of enemies on screen at once. That is the central claim DarkSwarm is making, and a closed alpha is the appropriate place to find out whether it survives contact with real players and real hardware.
DarkSwarm is a top-down tactical co-op shooter for one to four players. Missions have you recovering sensitive data, extracting resources and running operations on worlds the swarm has already taken. It is the debut game from Bitfire Games, published by Ghost Ship, the Deep Rock Galactic studio, which is a reasonable pedigree for four-player co-op about being outnumbered underground.
Not the first test
The studio ran an earlier closed alpha in September, so this is a second round rather than a first look. No release date or release window has been announced.
Why it matters
Enemy-count claims are easy to make in a trailer and hard to hold up in a four-player session with everyone shooting. Signing up is the only way to check it yourself before launch.
Why it matters
A co-op shooter built around overwhelming enemy counts lives or dies on whether the tech holds under load. The November 3 alpha is where players get to test that claim instead of watching a trailer make it.