Ex Helldivers 2 devs' new tactical FPS is like all my favorite shooters combined

Give me a shooter and I'll give you my free time. I don't know what it is about me. I have no interest in IRL guns, I went clay pigeon shooting once and it was fine, but on a computer screen it ticks all the right boxes in my sticky, grey brain. Add in hero abilities and preferably swift movement, and I'll happily play little else. New FPS games have a hard time breaking into the established rotation, but Heart Electric might just have the movement, the gunplay, and the twists on the genre to grab the world's attention. At the very least, we'll find out in the first global playtest, which is coming later this month.

Heart Electric is a bright, colorful hero shooter in the same vein as Overwatch 2. The vibrant art direction is already enough to differentiate it from the more serious shooters out there, but the gameplay looks to switch things up even further.

Playing in 4v4v4v4 battles, you can customize your loadouts, utilize your hero abilities, and master the mysterious 'flux' power that grants you new tools to navigate the map, if you dare capture it. The matches look simultaneously like a tense game of cat and mouse, and a hectic barrage of bullets from every direction.

Heart Electric announced a playtest for this month, only to be gazumped by the Arc Raiders playtest set to launch the exact same weekend. Therefore, the plucky hero shooter from former Helldivers 2 and Battlefield devs is pushing its playtest back by a week.

It may seem strange for a hero shooter to avoid clashing with an extraction shooter, but Heart Electric also has extraction elements. Hacking opponents' 'hearts,' which grant precious energy to respawn teammates, is a high-risk, high-reward twist on the hero formula that forces teams to make difficult decisions in the heat of battle.

With a four-way beginning, an extraction-esque middle, and a battle royale-esque finale when you're down to two teams remaining, Heart Electric is trying to combine a host of shooting genres into one. I've no idea if it'll work as a cohesive game yet, but I'm certainly ready to give it a shot and see what happens.

The Heart Electric playtest runs from Friday, October 24, until Sunday, October 26. You've can request access here.

If you can't wait until then, our list of the best multiplayer games will have you covered until the Arc Raiders/Heart Electric combo later this month. You'd best brush up on some co-op games, too, because communication and teamwork will be key.

Will you be trying Heart Electric? Let us know in our community Discord server.