[b]This was originally the final part of my review, but it discusses what is now the sole gamemode, so I’ve pushed it up to the top. I also went over the character limit, so I’ve cut a few things that are no longer relevant.[/b]
The FUBAR gamemode is a PvE extraction shooter gamemode with more streamlined controls and an array of other changes to the core gameplay structure. At the moment, it has two maps; one is very small with only one objective, likely intended as a tutorial map, and the other is much larger with four objectives and at least ten times the amount of enemies. You choose from one of four preset loadouts before deploying into either of these missions, which is fine, but it almost completely ditches any personalisation the game had in previous builds. Other changes introduced in this gamemode include infinite sprint and limited ammo, both of which are improvements over the classic campaign, and you CAN heal, but it is extremely finicky to do so. This gamemode also forces upscaling despite the options in the settings menu, [strike]and when paired with the scope variety, or lack thereof, it means that I as a sniper can’t see anything more than fifty feet in front of me.[/strike]
In theory, this gamemode is really fun, but it appeals to a completely different audience than the game was originally intended for, not to mention that the inconsistent performance and lack of content is more than enough reason for it not to be the sole gamemode. The dev says that this is what the community wanted, but I just can’t imagine that’s actually the case. Another primary reason for the change was apparently that the classic campaign had “too many maps and missions”… Like bro, what? Surely no one was complaining about too much content in a ten hour game. My working theory is that he banned most of the game’s intended playerbase after receiving warranted critique and was left taking feedback from the few idiots who had nothing bad to say about it.
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My main basis for comparison is Black One: Blood Brothers; another tactical shooter/milsim created by a solo dev using a combination of AI and marketplace assets, and in many places even overlapping in their asset usage. It has the same core gameplay structure and is listed at a similar pricepoint, so I feel it appropriate to compare the two.
I first booted up this game in Jul 2025 shortly after finishing BOBB and it was borderline unplayable; between the poor performance and input lag above medium graphics, I ended up not even loading into a mission before deciding to drop it entirely.
A year later after upgrading my hardware and seeing some patch notes about optimisation, I decided to check it out again, and while the performance was marginally better, I still didn’t really see any immediate changes gameplay-wise. In fact, even on my new hardware, I still had to set all my graphics to low in order to get above 15FPS on the Latin American map, and it was still dipping down between 3-6FPS depending on the direction I was looking in. Not that it matters because none of the three missions that take place on this map work, anyway. This is something that the dev stated he would look into over a year ago. I’m pretty sure there’s also some kind of always online ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, because despite playing solo, every mission was labeled as co-op and my internet ♥♥♥♥ itself whenever I was on the aforementioned Latin American map.
This game is built on an Unreal template (As indicated by the task manager name “Third Person Game Template”) and mostly if not entirely consists of marketplace assets and AI-generated art, graphics, voices, and cutscenes (Which is not disclosed anywhere on the storepage). I really hated it when I first started playing. I spent over an hour just messing with settings before I was even able to start a mission, but once you realise that most of controls in the menu either don’t work or can be ignored, then it’s just a matter of putting up with the bugs and jank, and believe me, there’s a lot of both. There are some cool concepts like dynamic exfil locations, but they’re mixed in with and maybe even outweighed by stupid decisions like a dedicated mount key you have to press in-unison with the jump key and two Chad maps with the only difference being the time of day (Which can be changed in mission select regardless). Taking into account this extra Chad map, there are ten maps spanning six locations, each with up to five missions for a total of twenty-two missions, plus a strange extra map with some unhinged speech about how Direct Contact is going to be used for real life military training and then plugging the dev’s Patreon. To the game’s detriment, a couple of these maps also try to implement CQC scenarios, but the framework just isn’t built for it. Each mission has set objectives and locations, and mission variables outside of weather are not randomised. There are no tutorials aside from a codex, which explains the bare minimum about the core gameplay loop and nothing about the more complex mechanics, some of which I still have yet to work out. Enemies can simultaneously see across the entire map and sometimes even through rocks, but also do not alert nearby allies, get alerted by dead bodies, or even remember seeing you if they turn more than 45º in either direction. Every weapon has infinite ammo and there’s an instant respawn mechanic with no penalty for death, making for a fairly easy and mundane experience. Dying does despawn all enemies in the vicinity, but it remembers how many enemies there were and respawns them when you approach the area, which I will say is a slight improvement over the enemy spawn mechanics in BOBB. Due to these proximity-based spawns, performance also doesn’t take a hit on larger maps or maps with more enemies, which again, is an improvement over BOBB. Much like in BOBB, there’s an arbitrary level progression system that has no bearing on the gameplay whatsoever, but unlike BOBB, the achievements don’t work. Even if they did, they would no longer be attainable due to the deletion of the campaign mode, and in fact, they don’t even show up in Steam Achievement Manager, which is something that I’ve never seen before. There are settings for upscaling in the menu (Dynamic resolution, FSR, DLSS, etc.), but despite disabling all of them, I could still see ghosting, so there’s at least some level of forced scaling behind this illusion of choice. There also appears to be some kind of RTS mode which is still present even in the most recent update, but I have no interest in this and as a result chose not to play it.
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So the ultimate question is; would I recommend this game over Black One: Blood Brothers? No, absolutely not. BOBB is generally far more stable and only marginally more expensive, not to mention that it has friendly AI, superior hostile AI, and a higher level of replayablility due to the randomised objectives. The one distinct difference between the two games is that Direct Contact features co-op gameplay, which BOBB is lacking and will likely not receive, however I can’t attest to its level of polish due to not having played it. Another bonus is that this game is [strike]half[/strike] a quarter the size of BOBB, however this was not the case until very recently.
I genuinely like the maps in this game better, and I think that the dev has some cool feature ideas, but he’s clearly lacking the coding ability required to properly implement them. If the two devs put their heads together on a single project, it could potentially be far superior to both games not to mention save a lot of time and money, although I get the feeling that the BOBB dev just has far more coding experience overall and that neither one of them would be particularly open to compromise or profit splitting. I just don’t think this game will ever catch up at a competitor level, and the few unique features that it does have just aren’t significant enough to warrant buying it.
