Splash Damage and Nexon brought their new free to play first person shooter to the show floor this year. In what has to be the biggest booth ever for a pre-alpha build Extraction (formerly Dirty Bomb) enters the realm of class warfare.
The single game type and map available showed off fast paced run and gun gameplay and the class based teamwork that is the core of Extraction. Five character classes are on offer: heavy weapons, support, medic, engineer, and sniper. Each class has his or her own special ability and/or piece of equipment. The heavy has a concussion grenade which stuns enemies allowing him to sweep the area with a belt feed machine gun. The support class can hand out ammo packs and call in air strikes. The medic can use his defibrillator on downed team mates and hand out health boosts.
In addition to being fast and holding a shotgun (a scary combo to face down) the engineer can hack/plant bombs faster than any other class and use her land mine to deny access to areas of the map. The sneaky sniper can remain invisible unless physically seen by an opposing player and has a heart beat monitor which makes all opposing players within a certain radius visible to his team. The classes feel very well balanced with all being capable of effectively using their features for offense and defense. Extraction is still in an early stage of development so that balance may change by the time the final product is released. Extraction comes from a pretty good lineage (Arkham Origins multiplayer, Brink) and is one to watch out for in the months to come.