Agreementhero shooter from developer Firewalk Studios recently had two betas so that anyone interested in trying out the game ahead of its August 23, 2024 release date could do so. Aside from a single map and game mode, both betas were the same, with all 16 characters on the roster being available for everyone to play from launch.
I’ve seen more than a few Content Creators and fans who say the world doesn’t need another hero shooter and that Agreement is unable to compete with giants such as Warnings 2 AND Evaluation because the number of concurrent players on Steam wasn’t that high. I played a few hours of the game’s beta myself, so I’m not saying it can or can’t make an impression on the market. But the game feels like it has more personality than any other hero shooter, because of one key and very elaborate element: the characters.
Already at the first launch Agreementputs characters front and center. The game’s story is told through weekly cutscenes that play before matchmaking and gameplay begin, meaning you’ll never miss one. They show how the motley crew of characters introduced in the opening cutscene are faring on their journey to become the greatest Freegunner crew in the galaxy.
Each scene only features a handful of characters, but they feel like the connective tissue between the larger plot points that are ultimately the matches you play. The scenes that everyone saw in the beta show the crew gaining Freegunner status for the first time. The second expands the universe with a discussion of how the first crew ever became Freegunners and how they made the map that all crews now exploit available for free.
In isolation, it doesn’t mean much. Together, these scenes assist us learn what this universe is all about and provide context for every match you play. Having this information right away, without having to search through menus and read in-game documents, makes it much more accessible, and the story will continue to evolve in this way each week, meaning you’ll feel like you’re working on the narrative as long as you log in and play at least once a week. Of course, you can go back and access all of this information via the documents if you want.
AgreementThe characters add more personality to the game over time as you play more and more matches. In most game modes, you can select and change your character with each respawn. This allows you to see them, their abilities, and their cheesy intro texts multiple times in each match. While this gets pretty lifeless if you’re playing a specific character every time, these texts are just the tip of the iceberg.
Each character is unique and truly stands out from the crowd through the way they speak, their skills, and what they wear. Teo may be your average soldier, but his eagerness to jump into battle, his rifle efficiency, and his speed tell the story of a hot-headed man who wants a little more glory out of life than guarding stores or working in the military.
1-Off, a giant yellow robot, is fascinated by keeping things tidy and neat. Even his weapons and abilities are close to this theme. He can suck in enemies or shoot them, drawing fire to flavor his weapon if you time it right. However, he is usually a gentle soul and you can tell by his carefree attitude and the way he is really in the game to have fun. Ultimately, he is ready to play as long as everything is neat.
Agreement is also one of the few hero shooters to assign pronouns to its characters. It may seem minor and negligible, but little touches like this really do matter and assist players identify with each character on a deeper level. It’s demanding to tell what gender a mushroom creature and a cleaning robot identify with, and having that on screen can make you feel much closer to the shells you wear as you jump into different game modes over what could end up being hundreds of hours.
Even in matches, each character feels like an individual when you play as them. Kyps, a pink android secret agent with a silenced pistol, is a speedy character with elementary skills. She can deploy surveillance drones to spot enemies on the map, but her real strength is sneaking up on them and taking them out from the shadows.
Lark is my favorite mushroom alien character, who uses spore-based abilities to buff allies and debuff enemies. They can drop mushrooms that create areas that buff all allies’ abilities and speed, as well as buff enemies that pass through them. Another mushroom becomes a respawn point that they can teleport to when needed. Even their weapon, the Razorpod Launcher, is unique in that it fires spores that will home in on enemies, dealing devastating damage.
The character archetypes, Anchor, Ranger, Breacher, Haunt, Warden, and Tactician are guidelines that give you a general idea of how to play them. But in reality, these characters are very different from each other and you won’t get the most out of them until you learn and master their abilities and hidden strengths by exploring them over a few matches.
In the end, it’s not just about how these characters look and what is written about them in the game, but also how they behave. Agreement as a shooter hero with more personality than most. In matches you’ll hear them firing off commentary when they do almost everything. Reloading, healing, using their abilities, all of that has its own line of dialogue.
All of these versions say more or less the same thing, but it’s the way they’re said that deepens the connection with the characters. Some, like Teo, just bark, but that’s because he wants to be tiny and to the point with everything he says in battle. He doesn’t have time for trivialities in his sentences when he could be shooting other Freegunners and winning the match.
On the other hand, Emari is a powerful giant with a unique shield ability. She talks about charging her batteries when it comes to healing and even laughs about it. These little details are exactly what shooter heroes need to differentiate their characters.
Without them, Teo is a soldier and Emari is a tank with a shield. I think it’s too effortless to fall into the trap of treating characters as if they can only be played a certain way in hero shooters. With that added personality and the way each character has to be played to their own strengths, rather than just to fit a role, I can see Agreement gaining a vast fan base who were looking for a shooter with a little more finesse than what the industry was used to.
