Warstride Challenges PC Review

FPS games are meant to be played in a simple way. Reach point B from point A, kill dudes, rescue hostages, and other basic tasks that are easy to fulfill. However, the players who want to specialize in the shooting genre are equipped with more than basic knowledge of fast reaction times and the ability to aim, traversing the level as fast as possible. In most speedrunning categories, speed is the key to finishing a level or a whole game, and you would want to be the fastest in order to get the world record.

This speed in FPS games is usually acquired by using weapons that are provided, but if you are very keen on your movement, bunnyhopping is the way to go. You might wonder what bunnyhopping is, and it is as straightforward as it sounds, hopping along the way to finish the level. But you see, some game engineers consider other factors while jumping, such as your velocity and strafing angle. With enough speed and strafing, you can trick the engine to move faster, and it occasionally happens with the movement of your mouse as well.

 

More wiggling of your mouse, combined with bunny hopping, creates more speed for your character, thus allowing you to become faster than your walking or even running speed. Bunnyhopping is nothing new; it has been around since Quake times, and it is interesting to see that Warstride Challenges is a game that only focuses on that aspect. Bunnyhopping and utilizing speed is the key factor.

As much as a time-trial game around FPS movement sounds great, as a long-time FPS player and boomer shooter enjoyer, I approached Warstride Challenges in an uneasy mood. The thought process and the execution are fine, but a thought in the back of my mind was not allowing me not to like this game at all. I will obviously get to that, but let's just inspect what Warstride Challenges has to offer.

The title is an FPS that focuses on finishing short maps filled with enemies, hard-to-aim buttons, and terrains that require precise movement. The first thing it offers is a tutorial on movement, which sounds easy on paper, but if you do not know the ins and outs of advanced movement, the tutorials will not take you far. In short, there is no tutorial for bunnyhops nor how to move that will increase your speed.

Each level has you start with a weapon, and you need to finish it in an allocated time. Depending on your overall score and the time it took you to finish, you can earn some Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum medals. For tutorials, there are grades too, C Grade, B Grade, A Grade, and A+ Grade, respectively. Each time you earn a medal, it gets added to the progression bar to open more levels. The levels are different from each other, and I'll talk about that soon.

 

In the main hub area, there are three different levels to choose from and three additional levels for arena fights, tutorials, and more challenging levels for veterans. The main course is obviously going through those four levels and beating every single one. It does not only stop there, though; you can replay the levels in different difficulties to spice things up. There is no shortage of content in Warstride Challenges, as one single level can have up to 50 different orientations for players to go through. Adding up the factor of grinding the best, there are a lot of hours to spend in order to perfect a run through a single sublevel.

When it comes to gameplay, Warstride Challenges offers the same formula as any FPS game, but the amount of customization in the game is actually great. From mouse sensitivity- not the basic number but exact yaw and move speed included- is so detailed that you can fine-tune every aspect of your own way of aiming. Controls are very responsive and work as intended, though if you are coming from a different FPS game, it might take some time to get used to.

A great offering of the title is the way you approach every single level; there are no defined routes to take, so players are free to do whatever they want. It starts slow with pistols, but as you progress, new weapons unlock, such as assault rifles, shotguns, rifles, and rocket launchers. Those spice up the gameplay, and once you get the timing right, everything works like a properly laid out plan.

The game might be very fast-paced in certain levels, and some levels are unbelievably hard to pass unless you are a machine programmed to aim with a swift response time. For that, the developers came up with the solution of slowing down time. I know this special ability is now used in almost every single game, but in Warstride Challenges, this mechanic is a must if you are aiming in a fast-paced environment. It is best to remember that some enemies are very rapid, and with the speed you build up with bunnyhopping, it will be hard to spot or aim at them. Considering you have to kill all the enemies to finish the run, you need to scan through every bit of the map.

 

The developers' enthusiasm is always seen in the game, and it was easy to spot due to other mechanics being involved. One of them was skull-hunting during regular levels. Developers hide hidden skulls that need to be shot in a level, and it can be tricky to find them sometimes due to the fast-paced personality of the game. However, if you have a keen eye and spot glowing skulls behind obstacles and walls, go for it. It does not add anything in terms of progress, but it is a nice challenge to get them all.

General marketing for the game is surprisingly built upon rivalry; in fact, during the gameplay, you can mostly see that the game happens to create a competitive scene between you, your friends, and everyone around the world who did the challenges. The Nemesis system, which puts you in a 1v1 situation, is a great implementation, as you can see the ghosts of your rival during a level. Although it is a nice addition, I mostly wanted to improve myself by just playing the level instead of racing against someone.

Now, Warstride Challenges might be the wet dream of a speedrunner who always employs bunnyhops, but there is a problem with the overall integrity of the game. You see, speedrunners usually play games that are not supposed to be based on speedrunning. Quake and Half-Life speedruns, especially the ones that heavily utilize bunnyhops and strafing, are like that because of how the engine is built. The developers of those titles did not intend for players to exploit their game in such cases, yet it became popular for these artifacts. Warstride Challenges actually comes against this idealogy and kind of pushes people off to keep doing what they already know.

Most people who got themselves into this genre of games are the ones who profoundly remember going through the series of those old games. Now that there is a purposely built game about bunnyhopping and finishing stages in a limited time, people won't have extensive ways to find other solutions to become better. For example, let's take the first level, which requires a button to be shot after killing all the enemies. The button is obviously one single entity that needs to be interacted with; however, due to linear pathing, players do not get to explore the level or find other ways to finish the level.

 

Freedom is what speedrunners usually crave, an opportunity to make routes and shortcuts better. Some exploits and new findings do make a friendly brainstorming in the community; however, Warstride Challenges is just a title that focuses on the sake of finishing the level, not letting players wander and dig deep. Being optimized is what drives the gaming communities, and in Warstride Challenges, once you perfect your run, there are no other ways to optimize it, which ruins the immersion.

Do not get me wrong; the idea is a representable pitch to players who love to spend hours upon hours finishing a bunnyhop in a Counter-Strike or a Quake map. But still, those players would still want to boot up the games they are good at instead of trying the new, flashy game that primarily focuses on getting better at FPS movement. Bringing something new to the market and letting people adapt to it is a bit off, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, Warstride Challenges is a neat, solid, and somewhat missable FPS title with varying degrees of difficulty and complexity. Bunnyhopping and strafing are a must; if those are your fortes, give the game a shot. But do not expect the game to be supported for a long while, as the content is super niche, and it is better to just go for a bunnyhop map in Counter-Strike: Source, to be honest.

Atilla Turan (@burningarrow)
Editor, NoobFeed