Spectre Divide, the most promising tactical FPS since Valorant, is out next week

After Morgan tried out the beta for Spectre Divide, a free-to-play shooter with an unusual two-characters-per-player setup, he said it was so fun that he couldn't stop thinking about it. 

That's admittedly no guarantee of success—I liked Concord when I previewed it, and its launch has been brutal—but Morgan's enthusiasm is certainly a good sign for the competitive FPS, which we've just learned is releasing in early access next week.

Spectre Divide's teams of three are smaller than the usual five you see in shooters like Counter-Strike and Valorant, which it definitely takes after, but it's not precisely a 3v3 game, because everyone's got two bodies. As Morgan explained it: «You spawn in your first body and can switch to your second body at any time, wherever they are on the map.»

It's weird, but Morgan says it works, and he also liked Spectre Divide's shooting, which is more Rainbow Six Siege than Counter-Strike in that you can move and shoot without tanking your accuracy. I can appreciate the appeal of CS2's stop-and-go gunplay—it's its own skill—but I've always preferred run-and-gun games. There's too much Quake 2 in my past to change my habits now.

«We're super excited about true-to-crosshair ADS unlocking tac shooters for a whole group of people for whom [Counter-Strike's] shooting model is not the right thing for them,» game director Lee Horn told us. «Hopefully we've given them that.»

Spectre Divide enters early access on Tuesday, September 3 at 9 am Pacific. You can find more details on the official site, the Steam page, and in Morgan's recent preview.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.