Lemnis Gate

A few days ago, Frontier Foundry and Ratloop Games Canada released the strategic first-person shooter Lemnis Gate, a title that takes the competitive nature of the genre and shakes it up with a degree of turn-based mechanics and playable characters. Following this launch, I've been dabbling in Lemnis Gate, putting this multiplayer game through the ringer, and while it does have quite the steep learning curve, it's also has quite the high skill ceiling.

But what exactly is Lemnis Gate you ask? Well, this is a game that has all the tropes of a normal FPS experience, except it sets itself apart from the rest with the use of a time looping mechanic. Each game consists of five rounds, where players pick a character and are tasked with either eliminating the opposing player or completing objectives to attempt to earn points. Each of the five rounds is around 30 seconds in length, and at the end, whatever you did in that 30 seconds is locked in for the rest of the game, with that loop repeating while you add another character and loop for the following four rounds. The catch is that the impact of future rounds can influence prior rounds, for example you can take out a past enemy character so they don't complete their loop, but likewise this could happen to you, and so a sort of chess match of FPS strategy is born.

And this happens regardless of the game mode you are playing (of which I'll dive into further in a moment). Lemnis Gate asks you to think about your present moves and choices, but also about how they will affect the future of the game, and as you might expect, this does give the game quite a steep learning curve, which if you can get past the first few hours allows it to blossom into an enthralling and deep shooter experience.

So what about those aforementioned game modes? Currently, Lemnis Gate has a few different ones on offer. At the top are the various ways to find a game, be it unranked, ranked, or offline, which then splits into a more complex set of options. You can queue a game where both players will get to play against each other in real-time, meaning it plays almost like a single-life arena shooter. But, if you are more of a fan of strategy, you can instead play the turn-based mode where players take turns to create a loop and there's actually no PvP involved, as you only fight the loops of your opponent. Then on top of this, you can even play the game with an ally, in 2v2 combat, with 2v2 versions of each of the game modes available.

From my experience with Lemnis Gate, the real-time version is a little more exciting and enjoyable, due to its faster pace, but that is a personal opinion if anything, as both styles of gameplay are implemented well in general.

Building on this, when you get into a game, you could be playing; Deathmatch, which is all about getting the most kills in the final time loop; Domination, which asks you to control the most objectives by the end of the final loop; Retrieve XM, a capture the flag style of game mode where the team who bags the most objectives in the final loop wins; or even Seek & Destroy, which asks one team to defend a bomb site and another to attack with the defender losing if any bomb sites are destroyed by the end of the fifth and final loop. So, there's really a lot of variety in how to experience this game.

As for the characters, these give Lemnis Gate a hero-shooter feel, as each operative has its own unique weapon, abilities, and playstyle. The interesting part of this design is that certain characters can have a more impactful presence if used right, albeit at a bit of a risk. For example, when I play, I like to send the tanky robot Karl out in an early loop, to put pressure on objectives for future loops, whilst also using his Protection Orbs to make it difficult for the opposing player and their loops to take him down. Then, for the final loop (or one of the latter loops), I like to use the sniper character Striker to instantly remove any other enemy characters that are responsible for eliminating my loops, leaving the objective work to Karl and other characters. It's a strategy that I've found success with, although it does rely on landing killing blows quickly with Striker else the plan falls apart very quickly.

It's this sort of thought process that makes Lemnis Gate very exciting to play. As I mentioned above, it isn't always easy, and coming up against an opponent who also has a plan that accounts for the future will make you have to adapt yours to counter what they are doing, hence the former reference to Lemnis Gate being alike a strategy FPS version of chess.

In terms of the gameplay itself, there's really not a lot to complain about. Lemnis Gate feels fluid and simple to pick up and get into; it's simply the strategy where the difficulty surfaces. And in terms of its visuals and the performance of the game, this is also pretty top notch. I have had a few times where players just leave games midway due to there not being a surrender rule, which can often feel like a hollow victory, but other than that, not a whole lot to report about in a negative manner.

Yet, I do feel like I should make it clear one final time that the strategic design of Lemnis Gate will not make this a game for everyone. It can be tough to get into, and a skilled player won't hesitate to run right over you, but if you can stomach the learning curve and begin to start thinking one, two, three, four turns ahead, well then what Ratloop has created is a pretty solid and exciting shooter experience.