Empulse Preview: A Movement Shooter Still Finding Its Footing

Empulse is the newest addition to the world of movement shooters like Apex Legends, and this one comes to us courtesy of 1047, the minds behind Splitgate. It's fast-paced and has some solid movement mechanics to get you hooked right away.

It is still not in 1.0, and it isn't exactly sporting an incredible concurrent player count for Early Access, but that doesn't stop the game from having a solid starting point. I played through the free demo during Steam Next Fest, along with the first few days of the actual Early Access period.

There's definitely a lot of room for improvement here, but I actually really enjoyed myself as I began to master the movement and become a speedy bringer of death. I'll be highlighting some of the best and worst parts of the game, but it's all subject to change and could change very quickly.

What is Empulse?

Empulse is a fast-paced movement shooter, much like Titanfall. It's more reminiscent of the older way of making Arena Shooters, where you'll choose a loadout and then jump right into the game mode. There aren't any power weapons to grab unless you count the Mechs as power weapons.

Every so often, two mechs will spawn that players can climb into and wreak havoc on any enemies who pass them by or potentially help defend or capture whatever objective may need it at that time. The main focus is on wall running and grappling using FPS combat that moves fairly quickly.

Instead of grenades, you have something called PAINT bombs, which all do different things and create large areas of effect. Some increase your speed or do damage, while others might cause you to get stuck in place and slow down immensely. This gives you a bit more flexibility in how you might like to play the game.

With a handful of modes and maps, you'll be running across walls forwards and backwards as you attempt to secure victory over the enemy. It seems the game leans heavily into an "easy to use, difficult to master" mindset, as getting up to speed is relatively straightforward, and maintaining that speed while getting kills can be a bit harder.

Becoming the Flash

I will say that this game is surprisingly casual-friendly in a lot of ways, but mainly in how easy it is to build up speed and maintain it. I went back to play the game that seemingly inspired the recent wave of movement shooters over the years, Titanfall 2, to see how movement might compare from one to the other.

Titanfall 2 is a bit dated at this point, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it did feel significantly more complicated in a lot of ways, and not all of them were good. To hone in the argument just to movement, Titanfall felt far more difficult to be good at than Empulse. Since people will read that and accuse me of needing to "git gud," I want to remind everyone that casuals effectively run the gaming world now.

Let me offer a better explanation. Empulse takes virtually no time at all to reach max speed, and maintaining that speed is relatively easy as you jump from wall to wall. That's very good, because it means players who are more casual gamers won't need to spend any time trying to learn how to do the basics.

This opens up more avenues for them to explore things like backwards wall running or continuous movement. It lowers the overall skill floor, the skill needed to actually play the game, and makes the game more accessible to average players. This is a bit of a double-edged sword as it comes with some good things and some bad things.

A Lack of Depth

One of the worst parts of Empulse is simply that the game offers no real depth to the gameplay. It is fast and very fun, but there are very few times when it feels like the game has that tug-of-war feeling between teams. This can be difficult to nail down in any game, but especially in Arena Shooters, where skill makes the biggest difference.

Let's compare it to something aside from Titanfall and reach for something a bit more generic, Call of Duty. In CoD, your setup can matter a lot depending on the map, the mode, or even what your team's plan might be. Every choice you make in how you create your loadout feels like it has a bit of weight to it, at least somewhat.

The same can't be said for Empulse, and part of the reason is that the maps don't drive any necessity for alternate styles of play. You could honestly replace every single map with blocky assets, and they'd feel almost the same. It does make the game easier to understand, but it doesn't create any opportunity to change what you might be doing.

I like to mix and match what I'm doing in FPS games like this, but in Empulse, it just never felt like I had to. The guns are a little different from each other, but they were all going to be used the same way, which detracts from their uniqueness. This can always change by increasing the map sizes and making each map a bit more individual, rather than them feeling so similar.

An Idea Without Direction

This section will be a little bit harsh as it's something that really bothered me throughout all the time I spent playing the game. Nothing about the game feels unique, and that's a major problem. In this day and age, a game needs something to pull people in that makes it stand out from the crowd, and frustratingly enough, Empulse doesn't have that.

There is some world lore that pops up at the beginning, but the maps don't convey that feeling at all. It is Early Access, so all of that can and is actively being changed, but it does hurt that right from the jump, everything feels so clean. The lore actually sets up a world that could be pretty interesting, but it fails to go beyond that setup at all.

Apparently, all of Freehold, the place where the game takes place, was once under the control of NAOMI, an AI that suppressed emotions to make people more docile. An EMP goes off, which frees everyone from NAOMI's control and causes Freehold to be closed off from the world. This creates two factions in the Loyalists and Unbound, both of which hire Lancers, player characters, to do their dirty work.

There are literally no traces of this in the maps whatsoever. Comparing it to some Titanfall maps, where the effects of the war on the Frontier can be seen visually while creating an interesting map setup, Empulse just falls flat. It's not even that it's bad; it's just that it isn't anything one way or another. I could not tell you a single name of the maps or their general vibe because they're so generic.

This doesn't stop at the maps; the mechs in this game feel incredibly out of place. They're easy to destroy, boring to pilot, and often make such a little difference to the actual game that you probably won't even want one. It's been brought up more than once, and they are working on it, but I think it's a more fundamental issue than that.

The maps just aren't designed to be big enough to offer a need for the mechs. You also can't really make the mech your own, which detracts from player agency and forces you into a specific play style with them. Hopefully, in the future, something will be done to make mechs a bit more interesting overall.

A Look to the Future

I cannot comment on whether 1047 will continue to fund and develop Empulse, but what I can comment on is how much I still enjoyed myself while playing the game. Despite all its flaws, Empulse is still fun to play, and that may be the most important part of anything I can say.

It was easy to pick up and reach that "flow state" that people talk about. Weaving between jumps, wall running, and sliding while gunning people down just made for such a good time. Empulse managed to capture my attention and be really enjoyable as I learned the game and how best to play it.

That being said, the game still feels like it just isn't enough, which sucks to say. It's difficult to find a game fun and still understand that there are far larger issues afoot. With the issues I've already listed out, the game is still enjoyable, at least for me, but what will matter the most is if it's fun for the larger range of players.

There's a lot to say about Empulse and 1047, but I'm a firm believer that you should at least try something before writing it off. I hope that 1047 will stick with Empulse and continue to expand and fix what's there. For now, the game is fun, but it certainly doesn't have what it needs to really break into being considered a great FPS game.