Developed by Redstone Interactive and published by Offworld Industries, Beyond the Wire is a new World War I-inspired first-person shooter. Beyond the Wire was originally released in Early Access back in 2020 however the game has now launched its 1.0 version after spending over 2 years in early access development. During its early access period. Beyond the Wire has shaped up into a solid first-person shooter based around the events of World War I. The highly ambitious project offers 50v50 shooting action spread across huge maps inspired by different locations of World War I. This is our review of Beyond the Wire in which we cut through some wires and stab some Germans with our Bayonets.
With an influx of World War, I shooters currently coming out on PC, Beyond the Wire has released into a well-saturated market however it brings enough to stand its own ground. Probably the biggest edge Beyond the Wire has is its scale and the game absolutely feels huge. Taking inspiration from Battlefield with open maps, vehicular combat, and a heavy focus on melee, close-quarter combat, Beyond the Wire is surely a stunner on the books. On the execution, however, the game does manage to deliver on all of its fonts but still, it is unable to gain enough traction as of now. Beyond the Wire offers two game modes at its full launch, each with its own challenges and rules.
These two modes are called Assault and Frontlines. Both of these battles have two phases however both modes play out completely differently from one another. The Assault mode allows one team of 50 players to assault a location that is defended by 50 players of the opposing team. The attackers start in a trenched area but must come out of their safety and push towards the opposition’s HQ. During the second phase, the attacking team tries to capture key points on the map and push sector by sector toward the main HQ. The Frontlines on the other hand is purely open-map warfare. Two teams of 50 players each come across each other on huge maps and their goal is to capture the entire map in their favor by capturing and securing key points in each round. Both teams can capture these locations and the team with the most points at the end of the game or the one that manages to capture all of the map wins the match.
Sticking true to the World War I era of trenches and muddy warfare; the maps are designed around the same concept. You will find plenty of trenches, muddy corridors, debris littered around the maps from previous battles, burned trees, destroyed vehicles, and more. The maps are huge in size to cater to the huge number of players on each side. Each map is inspired by different events of the real war and represents the insane level of destruction that each area suffered from the World War I era machinery. Each level is also accompanied by a lot of elements that surround the map and are not part of the gameplay however they add to the overall ambiance of the game. For example, fighter planes roaming in the skies above and random explosions on the outskirts of the map with gunfire noises at random places give you the impression of fighting in an all-out war.
I was really impressed by how realistic the map design and its atmosphere really are. For me, the most brilliant aspect of Beyond the Wire is the map design and how each map feels unique with its sounds and ambiance. The level of destruction shown on each map represents how brutal the first World War actually was and very few first-person shooters have actually portrayed this in this much detail. After you choose your desired map and game mode you want to play in, before jumping into the game, you will get to choose your faction and role. There are over 10 factions in the game including the American Expeditionary Force, German Empire, French Empire, and British Expeditionary Force. Choosing a faction will allow you to choose their iconic weapons and vehicles since each faction in the game has its own unique weapons, skill sets, and melee options. After choosing your faction, you can choose your role because your choice of loadout and weaponry will be based on your role. There are tons of roles to choose from in each faction.
Depending on your playstyle, you can choose from the section that has the role that you want to play available. Your gear and objectives will be based on your role. The basic roles are free in the games. However, for some roles, you will need to dish out XP earned during the match such as the Flame Thrower, Veteran roles, and senior roles that give you command over a certain number of players. As a leader, you can assign goals to your squad but if you are playing under a squad leader, you will get XP for following orders because Beyond the Wire rewards team-playing rather than killing enemies. Each of these roles comes equipped with weapons from their World War I era and these are designed to be as close as possible to their real-life counterparts. Since ranged combat was not very effective back then, you will find it a little hard to nab headshots with rifles that come only with iron sights and low-level magnifying options on scopes.
You have classic weapons in the game such as the Ross MK. III , Berthier Fusil MLE and SMLE MK. III rifles. Apart from handheld rifles, sub-machine guns, and pistols, you have heavy machinery, gun placements, and different vehicles to drive in the game as well. Heavy machine guns like the Hotchkiss are found mounted in various spots on certain maps that can be equipped and used against your enemies, and you also have different vehicles such as the Renault FT and the A7V. Since the game has vehicles, you will find plenty of anti-vehicle weapons in the game to take these out with as well such as the Mauser Tankgewehr 1918. Some of the maps represent anti-vehicle measures in them as well since these tanks can easily cross over trenches and mud, special tank traps deployed by enemy forces will force tank players to devise their own strategy in order to effectively use their vehicles.
The gameplay is yet another strong point in favor of Beyond the Wire. Everything from driving vehicles to shooting, Redstone has nailed everything in terms of gameplay as well. Since the weapons from this particular era were not very effective at their jobs, you will feel their massive recoils and slow reloads as you manually insert each bullet into your gun. This also gives you an increased sense of vulnerability because you know that if you miss too many shots, you will require a long time to reload, and this will give your opponents plenty of time to take you out. Apart from recoil, these weapons were also not that accurate with their shots so which is why careful aiming is crucial for landing hits in the game. You can also use melee weapons such as machetes or attach attachments such as bayonets to your rifles to use them as melee weapons if you miss your shots. Since most of the battles are fought in tight and narrow trenches, melee automatically becomes an important element in your arsenal.
The size of maps and the number of players allowed for each game is pretty big and thus it comes with one of the most significant issues that the game is currently facing. There are not enough players playing the game. During its launch, there was a decent number of players across each of the servers however even at launch, the servers were unable to touch those sweet 100-player marks. This is surprising because Beyond the Wire is a brilliant World War I shooter with amazing maps, decent vehicles, and shooting mechanics and it has the potential of becoming the next best online, competitive shooter in the genre however the game is unfortunately unable to attract a dedicated fan base to keep the servers filled. Before publishing this very review, I went back into the game to see how it is doing after its first month of release, and sadly, things are not looking too promising.
To counter the low player count, what Redstone Interactive can do is incorporate some modes with AI bots so that players who have already invested money into the game can at least have some fun in the game. Having AI fill up spots in online games would be beneficial for the game as well and along with this, Redstone should also stop spending money on allowing players to rent out their own servers forcing everyone to play on the official servers which might bring the community of the game together and at least make it look like someone is actually playing the game instead of having that zero player number in the lobby explorer. Redstone Interactive has really done an amazing job on the game overall as it looks amazing, the map design is brilliant, and the game tells you a lot about the events of World War I as well.
Another issue when talking about servers is that the game has no servers that are closer to Asia. Pings are exceptionally high for players if you are playing it from Asia or the Middle East and this causes severe issues when playing competitively. Having official servers in the Middle East or the Asia region will greatly help players who want to jump into the game from these particular regions. There is a huge market potential here but most of the players will not play the game at such high pings because Beyond the Wire is a completely online game and there is nothing to do when offline, so pings play an important role in it. Players in Europe and the Americas are fine since they have official servers closer to them with lower pings.
One more thing that can be done to improve the game is to ditch the current class system and incorporate a simpler system that is easier for everyone to understand. The current class system might be too complicated for players who are generally accustomed to simpler systems of Call of Duty and Battlefield. Having so many classes in the game might be intimidating for new players who are not serious when it comes to custom loadouts and on-field roles. Having just 4 classes that are simpler to understand and combining the extra classes that are currently available in the game will offer a simpler and more refined system to players. The loadouts are pretty decent however they come with limited options right from the start. If the game gets a simple enough class system in the future, it might make players more comfortable with the system when they first start playing the game.
Technically, the game runs just fine however there are some visual optimization issues with the game. Running the title on a 3080 still results in the slow rendering of the surroundings and sometimes certain elements do not render in the game at all. In areas where the visuals render completely, the game looks outstanding, and the maps really bring out the WW1 vibes. This is a pretty basic issue with the game, and it can be solved easily with a little more optimization. Apart from this, there are no other issues with the game. The sound design is pretty solid, and the ambient sound effects are great to make you feel like you are actually on a WWI battlefield and not just an empty map in the middle of nowhere. The overall presentation of the game really makes you feel like you are running right in the middle of the mud-drenched setting of World War I.
Final Verdict:
Beyond the Wire looks and plays great and holds its ground fairly well when compared to other World War I shooters. After playing it initially for my review, I recently jumped back in the game to spend some more time in it and all of the official servers of the game were empty which is really alarming for the title’s future. The game features great maps and the overall warfare scale is excellent. However, without a dedicated player base, sadly there is not much the developers can pull out of this title. The game modes are limited at this point however the map count is good, and it keeps things fresh. I will be jumping in the game back soon and I hope to see more players in the game because Beyond the Wire is an amazing first-person shooter and it will be sad to see it go away like this.
Final Score: 8.0/10
