Ocean Drive Studios is an indie game company based out of Soul, Korea. Their website only features the five heads of each department, but it is likely that there is a bigger team of artists and contractors involved. The company’s only other released game is Lost Eidolons, a turn-based strategy RPG. Blackout Protocol is their first official foray into an action game.

In Blackout Protocol, new agents have been welcomed to the intelligence agency S2P. During orientation, a distress call is received from the remote base, Section 13. All local agents are unavailable due to various reasons - missing in action, medical leave, retirement, and more. Only the newer recruits are ready to make the call and investigate what happened in Section 13.

During the Early Access period, there are four agents with different strengths and powers to select from. Boy Scout is the tough mid-range vanguard. They can unleash a burst of energy that pushes back foes. Red is the team’s expert marksman. She can enter an accelerated state that speeds up reloading and fire rate. Scalpel is the precision close-range assassin. She deals high damage to a single enemy and steals their life energy. Finally, Beaker is the lab technician. Her concoctions heal allies on demand. Other characters are teased in promotions, but it is unclear if they will release later or were reworked into the existing four agents.

Prior to the game proper, you will be brought into an abrupt tutorial - a sort of in-medias res where the characters already know what’s up, but the watcher is bewildered. The player agent, typically Boy Scout, is highly injured and carrying a type of currency called Data Nugs. These are the property of S2P, and they cannot advance until depositing the collection with the company.

This serves to explain the level-up and skill system. The character will have 15 Data Nugs to spend on powers, but this is shared with the whole account. You can use them to instantly improve character roll speed or invest them towards high ammo capacity and greater healing later on. However, there is no canceling the allocation, making choices and mistakes permanent.

Further, the tutorial agent is also given two guns for their weapon cache: a basic handgun and a medium rate of fire assault rifle. They are then ushered to defeat the first level’s boss while still damaged and without explanation of combat. This enemy is a complete surprise and will kill with just one or two hits. But there is no way for a rematch, the tutorial ends, and you are booted back to the actual title screen.

The main menu serves as an odd character selection: you need to scroll left and right to change their default hero. Interestingly, every closet in an agent’s induvial room leads to the same armory. Here players can check the status of their upgrades, found weapons, and other stats. When you are ready to play, the featured character will rush off in a unique cinematic.

All players are first brought to a lobby room, where two game modes exist. Section 13 is the story mode featuring missions deeper into the base. The other is Swarm Defense, where the team will take on various waves of enemies but will always be granted a safe room to heal after every three waves.

It should be noted that Section 13 is specifically designed for teams of three, and there are no difficulty settings to adjust in either direction. This means it is nearly impossible to finish solo or even with just two people. What compounds this even further is that new players cannot join mid-game, while it is still possible to quit during a match. This means the entire run of the campaign will need to be restarted from the first level.

There is no regional matching at all, and it is free for all players to join public games. This means you will often be paired with people with vast ping ranges - up to 700 or more millisecond delays - and all sorts of language or cultural barriers. Blackout Protocol may also be completely unplayable depending on time zones or simply if the player base isn’t logged on. When attempting to join a game, there is no confirmation or load screen, and some people may assume that the game has frozen.

Team composition is also extremely important. Having at least one Beaker is needed to keep everyone in shape. Some people might just want to have three Beakers so that everyone is continually healing. Conversely, Scalpel winds up being a liability as there are too many swarms to focus on single target hits - it is also extremely selfish to self-heal only.

An absolutely bizarre feature is friendly fire. Yes, in a crowded gun-based survival game, it is extremely to accidentally, or even purposely, kill all your teammates. This promotes griefing other players or rage quitting at the sign that things could go south. Additionally, players need to rely on each other to revive teammates quickly. The longer someone is downed, they will lose total max health. This means if the whole team isn’t good enough, deaths will keep cascading.

Levels in Blackout Protocol are crawling with dozens of zombie-like abominations that charge quickly and try to swipe with melee attacks. In other parts of Section 13, armed soldiers are waiting to ambush S2R with heavy weaponry. Most of these attacks will quickly kill an agent in three or four hits, requiring much coordination.

Baked into this teamwork are the extremely slow reload speeds. Putting in a new clip can take as long as two seconds for some of the stronger weapons - like miniguns and flame throwers. During this time, you are vulnerable and likely to die if attacked. Reloading cannot be performed during another move, like dodging or using a cooldown. The idea is that the other team members will draw enemy fire while only one person reloads. But in practice, this is hard to time right, and it is more common that everyone will simply die simultaneously.

Thankfully, any time the team reaches a safe house, it is possible to spend all Data Nugs, deposit weapons schematics in the armory, and make permanent upgrades that will save for the next run. But, this creates another issue of many players simply farming the first couple of rooms, spending currency, and then abandoning the mission without actual progress.
 

It is kind of unclear what Ocean Drive Studios' vision is for Blackout Protocol. On one end, it seems like it is meant to be this methodical rouge-like akin to Dead Cells or Enter the Gungeon. But it also shoves in too many enemies, like a Diablo 4 style hack and slash. This leads to a completely unbalanced gameplay that is more of an oppressive grind.

Blackout Protocol currently suffers from many symptoms of other online-first games. It needs a large player base to function, yet the developers are stifling the community from growing organically. It runs the major risk of being yet another Blightbound - a nearly dead-on-arrival multiplayer game that failed to resuscitate. However, Ocean Drive Studios can perhaps turn things around by taking player feedback seriously. Those interested in Blackout Protocol should monitor the ongoing Early Access development and make a call on when they are ready to jump in.
 

Kurtis Seid (@KurtisSeid)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed