In Project Resistance, you have 4 starting survivor characters, Samuel, Valerie, Tyrone, and January. Each character comes equipped with their own unique movesets and abilities, which help to assist you and your team in staving off traps, zombies, among many other threats. You all must work together in order to escape and outsmart the devious mastermind who controls everything behind the scenes.

During our playthrough as the survivors we opted to play with Valerie, who acts as the healer of the squad. Now of course in typical RPG fashion the healer is quite weak and requires a great deal of focus in order to ensure the whole team survives. So most of your time is spent paying attention to your teams health bar; while also being mindful of what’s around you. She doesn’t come without her perks however as she’s able to heal allies but when she kills an enemy, she’s able to pick up items that otherwise couldn’t be picked up by anyone else. These items are usually pretty good and give Valerie the edge, especially in situations where ammo/weapon selection is low. No comments were provided as to how we could customize things which is fair, considering how early in development the game is. However, we are hoping that we will get to see some customized loadouts along with custom character building for a more organic experience for players.

Samuel is more of the hands-on type and specializes in close hand-to-hand combat. His boxing style allows him to knock enemies down and stun them, allowing for your team to follow up for kills. Tyrone is the assigned tank in the game and for those familiar with how tanks work in RPGs, he’s essentially the go-to guy for soaking up damage and dealing just as much. Lastly we have January, whose role is to hack and destroy items such as cameras and drones, so that the survivors can avoid any significant damage.

The mastermind however is really where the fun lies in Project Resistance and is in fact our most favorite aspect about the game. Perhaps some of you have heard of Evolve, a 4v1 survival game where players were pitted against a huge monster and you have to find ways to work together and survive at all costs. Project Resistance works very much the same way but more sophisticated in terms of how the mastermind controls things. As the mastermind you’re able to strategically plan out your dastardly scenarios and place enemies, traps, and more around the map. There are presets available from the get-go that are pretty much like default placeholders for traps in the level, but everything else is provided to you from that point onward. You’re able to place armored zombies, regen-zombies, take over the camera drone and shoot people, along with summoning everyone’s favorite Tyrant to cause even more havoc.

All of this is at your disposal but also at a cost as well. Everything that you use has a cool down and so it really comes down to how you properly plan your attack, and strategically placing enemies in places to prevent the survivors from advancing. As the mastermind your goal is to try and split up the team as much as possible, so as to slow them down and get the kills needed to move forward. New tools are unlocked as you progress and so it’s like a game of cat and mouse, as you’re trying to bait the opponent to play to your advantage. There’s almost a science to it in a way and it feels so invigorating to place items just about anywhere you please, thinking one step ahead of the pack, and ensuring that you don’t allow anyone past the green light. Is there a survivor stuck in a room? Perfect, lock them in the room and spawn lickers along with regen-zombies to overwhelm them. Pulling up the map is extremely beneficial since it gives you a birds eye view of where the current traps are along with the survivors, and so you're able to analyze the field to see just what you need in order to have the tides turn in your favor.

Your traps always getting blown up? No worries, just spawn a few dogs along with an armored enhanced zombie to keep the survivors in check. With so many options at your disposal the mastermind allows for so much versatility, and this is just the tip of the iceberg for Project Resistance. The game makes excellent use of the RE engine so anyone familiar with RE2 will feel right at home, but it’s very straightforward that newcomers will easily feel accommodated. As for the survivors it really all comes down to avoiding death at all costs, and really doing your best to outplay the mastermind whenever you possibly can. Communication between you and your team members is paramount in long lasting survival since the mastermind can easily manipulate the world around you, such as summoning Tyrant to make your life a living hell, or preventing you from collecting Bio material in order to move onto the next ward. So it all boils down to optimizing every character's strength in some way to ensure that everyone stays alive, and can create an easy pathway to success.