Fans of MOBAs and extraction shooters should sign up for Seekers of Skyveil's playtest on Steam and prepare for its closed beta next month

Seekers of Skyveil is like playing a MOBA with a tight time limit. You have to get in and out alive so you can come back with better stuff. It's an extraction shooter without the shooter, a genre twist that hooked me when I played it in May. Its developer Elodie Games runs regular playtests on Steam—which you can sign up for now—and next month it's going to enter closed beta.

Technical game designer Athena Dai says Seekers of Skyveil is «like if League's presentation kind of met Dark and Darker and Tarkov's gameplay loop,» in the new closed beta developer update video. That's the vibe I got in my preview: You choose a hero, drop into a map, and try to find as much loot as you can while fighting off (or running from) enemy teams. If you die, you lose everything you have, but if you escape, you can gear up your characters for the next run.

Three maps, each designed for different levels of skill, will be available in the closed beta as well as a new owl archer hero named Strix. I was quite fond of Zuraya, a damage dealer who dashes after enemies, but you can also play a giant tree man tank. The 'Seeker' designs use fantasy archetypes you've seen many times before but update them with more modern looks, like the leggings and sneakers that ice hero Lily wears.

Before the closed beta kicks off, you can sign up on Steam or watch Twitch streams for an invite to the closed alpha playtests and grab an exclusive in-game emote. The next one starts tomorrow and runs until Friday.

Extraction shooters aren't my thing, but a team-based extraction game with cute heroes? I'm in.

Elodie Games says the closed beta will be the first time everything in the game will be playable at once. The current playtests tend to focus on one or two features, but the studio says it's ready to put it all out there. Although there's no specific date for when the beta starts, access to it will grow as more features are added.

I'm not even much of a MOBA player, but Seekers of Skyveil was strategic,