This new competitive PC shooter is Valorant with a body-swapping twist

From Marvel Rivals to Concord to Fragpunk, many new competitive shooters are attempting to stake their claim in one of gaming’s most popular genres. We’re at the point where new multiplayer games need something special to stand out, whether that be the use of well-known superheroes in Marvel Rivals or the unique card-based gameplay of Fragpunk. Spectre Divide is a new game from Mountaintop Studios and yet another multiplayer first-person shooter that hopes to become the next big thing. Its twist on the formula? Players can control and swap between two different bodies while playing.

Spectre Divide is technically a 3v3 shooter, but each player has two characters that they can position properly and swap between on a dime in order to get a strategic upper hand on other players. Based on a couple of Spectre Divide rounds I played with some of its developers ahead of today’s official reveal, the “Duality” mechanic feels like a lot more than a gimmick.

Duality delivers

Spectre Divide’s main mode is Bomb Diffusal. It’s a round-based, best-of-eight mode in which one team attempts to plant and set off a bomb (called a Zeus) while the other tries to kill all their opponents or defuse the bomb once it is set. Players earn income between each round and can spend that match-specific currency to buy weapons, armor, and abilities between rounds if they need to. That should all sound familiar if you’ve played Counter-Strike or Valorant before.

I appreciate that the buy phase offers pre-set bundles for players who want to avoid buying individual weapons for two different characters. Once players are in a match, that’s where the Duality mechanic comes into play. During the buy phase before each round, players can set their main and spectre body wherever they want on a map. Players can quickly swap between them by pressing X. To move their spectre during the match, players have to throw a puck on the ground, and the spectre will travel to that new location. That mechanic enables quite