High school can be a challenging period for many of America's youth, and graduation is often viewed as a much-needed reprieve from the immense anxieties produced by its social hell-scape. Now, imagine that you are just months away from that sweet, sweet academic liberation when you and your friends partake in a game of demonic poker that ends up transporting you and the lot into the upside down version of your hometown. To make matters worse, all manner of monstrous creatures roam its streets in search of blood. At least you've got your friends though, right?
This is essentially the scenario being presented by Last Year, an upcoming 5v1 asymmetrical horror title by developer Elastic Games.
If you've played other titles in the genre such as Dead By Daylight, the setup should seem relatively familiar. A team of "survivors" face off against one especially dangerous "killer" in a fight to the death. On the survivors side, players choose from a lineup of characters - each of which with their own set of upgradable skills. Meanwhile, the killer must decide how to best eliminate their prey by either taking an aggressive approach and meeting them head on or utilizing traps to pull off devastating ambushes.
While not especially original in terms of premise or gameplay, Last Year does at least provide its survivors with a means to defend themselves. Having little else to do other than run, hide, and hope for the best has been a point of contention for me with other titles in the genre, so having the ability to fight back is a most welcome deviation from the current prevailing formula.
Much like its contemporaries, Last Year will be steadily phasing in new content in the form of "chapters" that not only introduce new playable killers, maps, and mechanics, but will also expand on the game's lore. Perhaps those kids will eventually live to see graduation, after all.
Developer Elastic Games hopes to make Last Year the new go-to option in the asymmetrical multiplayer space with regular updates, gameplay additions, and DLC. That said, they've got some pretty big competition to overcome if that is to happen, and the genre seems to be getting more saturated by the day.
If all goes according to plan, Last Year releases with Chapter 1: Afterdark on Steam December 10th.
