Lemnis Gate

The player, in a first-person perspective, runs towards an objective, while another one of their operatives from a previous loop runs past them to the left.

Lemnis Gate was a turn-based first-person shooter with timeloop and hero shooter elements.[1][2] Games are either 1v1 or 2v2, and the standard game mode, "Seek and Destroy", involved having one side defend five "resistors" at different points on the map while the other side attacked them.[3][4] On each turn, the first player or team chose an operative (one of six characters with different abilities) and completed an action in a 25-second loop.[2][3] The other player or team then completed their own 25-second loop.[3] Previous operatives automatically carried out the actions that the player inputted for them in previous loops, and later operatives could disrupt the actions that they take in order to stop them from completing objectives.[3]

One reviewer gave an example of how the loops affected gameplay: their operative was able to damage an opponent's character enough from an earlier loop that it caused a cascading effect, allowing them to eliminate all of the previously looped operatives to squeak out a draw from a match because of the butterfly effect.[3] Games could quickly devolve into puzzle-solving sessions, as players strategize over the best operative to choose and the best strategy to take in a given situation to score the most points.[1] The game included a tutorial area which allows players to try out the different skillsets of the operatives before playing, but the game quickly pushes players into online matches.[2]

The development of Lemnis Gate was inspired by conversations that started in 2015, and development began in earnest in the middle of 2017 according to developer Ratloop's blog.[5] The developers felt that there was a large amount of competition in the first-person shooter space and wanted to create a something with a unique take to attract players.[6] The team decided to incorporate a time loop mechanic because they felt it would "bring something fresh to the table," according to game director James Anderson.[4]

The game originally had a larger tutorial, but after Ratloop tested it with players, found that people were not interested in going through a lengthy intro before getting to play the game.[6] A bug during development had previous characters not being properly destroyed, leading to the game having sometimes hundreds of characters spawning and causing chaos.[7] The title of the game refers to the lemniscate, a mathematical curve that loops in on itself like a figure-eight.[7] The game was also released on Xbox Game Pass at the same time as its general release.[8] Before its release, the game was delayed by a month by Ratloop to its eventual release date in September.[9]

Reception to the game was generally favorable according to Metacritic, with critics praising its unique take on the hero shooter genre while sometimes criticizing its complexity.[10] PC Gamer's Robert Zak felt that the game made familiar concepts from other first-person shooters interesting and fresh again, noting that the game "could prove an ever-swirling timesink for shooter fans with a cerebral side."[3] Rock Paper Shotgun's Matt Cox felt differently, saying that the game's often ended up being very evenly matched and that the last person to go would often win.[2] In a mixed review, NME's Jim Trinca felt that though the game's concept is interesting and that its ideas are brilliant, the first-person shooter mechanics that underpinned it were "underwhelming."[11] IGN Italy's Di Angelo Bianco echoed Trinca's thoughts, noting that the game's underlying concept made up for some of the lack of personality its setting and characters exhibited.[12] The game was on a GameSpot list which highlighted the highest-ranked first-person shooters on Metacritic from 2021.[13]

• Official website