Apocalypse Now: Edge 394 investigates how Sharkmob will shake up the extraction shooter with extreme climate change in Exoborne

We’ve played plenty of games set on a post-cataclysmic Earth, so there’s something refreshing about getting to experience one that takes place mid-apocalypse. From the creative team behind World In Conflict and The Division comes Exoborne, a game whose multiplayer action is lent a dose of chaos by extreme weather. 

Essentially a shooter set inside a disaster movie, it’s a world where The Day After Tomorrow has been brought forward to today – the result of megacorporation Rebirth’s profiteering attempts to deal with the climate crisis, which have instead caused a catastrophic event named the Collapse. 

Among the survivors that remain on the storm-lashed planet, the Exoborne are thriving. Sporting armoured exoskeletons (exo-rigs in the game’s parlance), they battle one another in matches redolent of extraction-shooter greats such as Hunt: Showdown and Escape From Tarkov. If these customisable rigs help set Exoborne apart from its peers, however, it’s the unpredictable nature of, well, Mother Nature that is its biggest distinguishing feature.

“Best-laid plans are not going to work in this game,” says Sharkmob’s Martin Hultberg, “Something always forces you to react and adapt.” With your rig’s traversal capabilities as important as its arsenal, then, you might want to trade a little offensive power for a grappling hook that allows you to navigate more effectively in such extreme conditions. 

There’s plenty more to whet your appetite in our comprehensive Exoborne feature – and, for that matter, in the rest of the issue. We’re granted an audience with the ever-ebullient Ikumi Nakamura, who has been grappling with a very different set of challenges at her new ‘borderless’ studio Unseen. At a time of unprecedented industry layoffs, four solo developers outline the pros and cons of going it alone, while Polish dev Fool’s Theory explains how it has managed to punch above its weight in Studio Profile. Two swan songs are the subject of our Making Of… and Time Extend features,