While Escape From Tarkov has sat as the unchallenged king of extraction shooters for many years now, it's starting to find itself staring down a flurry of new challengers. One such rival is Arena Breakout Infinite, which has generated a lot of interest and over a million wishlists on Steam despite only having run a closed beta so far. Well, it's now preparing to fling its doors wide open, because the Arena Breakout Infinite early access launch is arriving "soon".
There's absolutely no mistaking that this new free Steam game when it launches, so unlike Tarkov, there's no upfront cost or separate game launcher to act as a potential barrier to entry.
While I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of a firm date, the announcement that Infinite will be launching in Steam Early Access soon is very exciting indeed. I'm already envisaging a massive influx of players when the day does arrive – existing Tarkov players will definitely want to take a look at what's on offer, and it also acts as a cost-free way for more casual shooter fans to give this hardcore, tactical subgenre a try.
Developer MoreFun Studios has also revealed that plenty of new content will be added to the game for its Early Access launch. The headline addition is a new, smaller-scale map called Armory, which s the larger battlegrounds of Farm and Valley from the closed beta.
MoreFun is also introducing a new boss called Renoir, an alternating weather system, a killcam feature, new weapons and gear items, and the debut of seasons. It's unclear at this stage whether all of the content shown in the roap below will be there on day one when early access begins, or if it will be gradually drip-fed via this new seasons model.
If you're interested in trying Arena Breakout Infinite when Steam Early Access arrives in the near future, you will need to pre- here to be let in.
Despite already facing hit impressive peak player counts when it launched, and that was for a paid, $35 game. Whether FPS fans will like what they see when they get there, and whether MoreFun can sustain any popularity it enjoys in the longer term, remain to be seen.
To see what other shooters are on the horizon, take a look at our multiplayer games guide is stuffed with competitive and tactical titles that you can play right now.
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