[PREVIEW] Bodycam: A Concept Sold Like a Game

Launched in April 2023 with the project Unrecord, the fashion for FPS bodycams has been emulated. If we were able to see horror games appearing here and there using the same concept last September, it is Bodycam who had been talked about the most. Seeming to play on his resemblance to Unrecord, it announced itself as its multiplayer counterpart, and available almost immediately. Finally, given the enormous enthusiasm generated, the two young French developers from the Reissad studio decided to expand their concept a little, expand their team and postpone the release. Last January, during the playtests, we were even able to interview them and thus gain a little more detail on their intentions. Although the concept was very attractive, important components were still missing: level design and game design. Unfortunately, five months later, for the early access release, we don’t have the impression that the project has evolved much.

Test carried out on a version provided by the developer.

Illusionism and realism

This will not have escaped your notice, Bodycam focuses on realism. It’s even photorealism, mainly based on photogrammetry technology, the principle of which is precisely to take photos in the real world, to make textures to apply to 3D models. An additional trick comes in with the on-board camera effect, which allows you to dirty the image in order to make it look like what real cameras come out with, particularly those of the police. We therefore do not have a rendering as we could see it in real life, but as we could see it on a broadcast from an on-board camera. Moreover, the faces of all the characters are blurred, a fairly clever process to match the real videos and simplify the work on a part of the body that is easily missed, as we can see in the menus. The immersion is further reinforced by a very coherent sound design: the gunshots are very loud and saturate, in order, once again, to simulate the rendering of a bodycam. Ragdolls, when opponents die, are also very successful. The bodies roll down the stairs or rocks in a very believable way. As for the weapons, we see that great care has been taken in the animation, which also reinforces the immersion. The feedback is very pronounced and gives a great feeling, which we would dream of having in many milsim, Weapon 3 on your mind. The shots cause violent movements that are difficult to control, a kind of chaos that one can perfectly imagine could be encountered in such an extreme situation.

The FPS QWOP

Although Bodycam either an FPS, the handling is not very easy to understand. We have the impression that we are dealing with a sort of QWOP in 3D, without really understanding why our character tilts his head, brings his weapon to his side or takes three weeks to get up. After a few dozen minutes, you start to control it a little better and the sensations are quite good. For once, these movements are not at all realistic, but bring a little heaviness and a feeling of power when you come to shoot. We therefore wonder why we can find a map with lots of nooks and cramped passages, particularly unsuitable for the proposed movements. Maybe it’s because it’s one of only two maps truly designed by the studio’s developers?

Game design, this great absence

Yes, we are reaching the limits of what is proposed Bodycam. Currently, of the five cards offered, three come directly from the asset store (Russian Building, Worn House And Oil Rig). The work was mainly to add decorative elements and position small structures, in order to make it more realistic and try to tweak the map to make it something usable, as we can hear during the interview . As Airsoft House, Tumblewood, a forest map, may have been entirely developed by Reissad. Bad luck, she’s completely stupid. Too large, illegible and without choke point. Even after its recent modification, this is arguably the most useless card. The oil platform, for its part, is much too large, is further proof of the team’s lack of vision. Indeed, what is the point of offering four or five floors for a 5v5 game in which you die in one or two bullets? So remain Russian Building And Worn House, both quite restrained and quite pleasant to play, but which they did not create. We feel a cruel lack of level design. From what we understand, it seems that a level designer was part of the team, but he left the studio the day before the early access release, a priori for difference of opinion.

There are currently three game modes. Firstly, the beast deathmatch, which serves more as a warm-up than anything else, since the respawns are random. It therefore regularly happens to appear in front of an enemy already ready to shoot, and therefore to die immediately. Owl. Then comes the team deathmatch, very classic, but effective. Sometimes a little long when only two opponents have survived, and they are silently turning on their own side of the map. Finally, the developers integrated the mode body bomb when released in Early Access. One of the two teams has a bomb, which they can activate at the start of the round. It will then be necessary to defend it until the explosion, while the adversaries try to defuse it. We might as well tell you that we have rarely seen such a stupid principle. At equal level, the team in possession of the bomb is almost sure to win, since all they have to do is camp the spawn zone. It is perhaps an attempt to innovate and not find yourself repeating the principle of Counter-Strike, that is to say, having specific areas in which the bomb can be planted. Unfortunately, we cannot say that it was a success.

Performance and finishes

It’s pretty standard with Unreal Engine 5: you need a recent graphics card for it to work roughly. Bodycam does not deviate from the rule, putting aside quite a few players. As usual with early access, we are not going to criticize this point too much, because optimization is often an aspect worked on at the end of the project. On the other hand, we can still rail against this UI which is at once horrible, impractical and very buggy. You will have to be patient if, like me, the game launches in windowed mode at a resolution lower than that of your screen: the back button only works one time out of ten. It’s certainly not very spectacular, but we’re going to have to rework all of that…

And now ?

The launch was a great success: more than 16,000 players simultaneously on the night of the launch and 11,000 evaluations in one week. Even if they are not all positive (around 71%), most are blinded by the very successful gunplay. The communitarianism must also help a lot, because I mainly met French people during my games. On the other hand, even if he is not the instigator of the movement, it is good Bodycam which comes first to the market. It therefore remains to be seen whether the developers will honor their promises, materialized by a roadmap posted online a few days before the release. We should therefore see new cards arriving before the end of the month, and we would like them to be original, while we are at it. Hopefully they really worked on the level design. In terms of game modes, we will have to wait for the third quarter with a zombie mode, which does not seem quite strange, given the competitive orientation of the initial project. But if it happens, it will turn out to be much more interesting than the rest! And if not, new weapons and skins are planned, so obviously all is forgiven.

See you in a year

By arriving first on the market, Bodycam hits a big blow. Its on-board camera concept, visually very impressive in its realism, easily convinces. In addition, the gunfeel is very punchy and enjoyable, and the movements, although a little hard to understand, are quite nice with a little training. Unfortunately, at the moment there’s nothing more, which is a bit of a pain in the ass for the price. Only two cards from the Unreal store can really be used and only in team deathmatch, because the mode body bomb is as balanced as a brick in a washing machine. The maps developed entirely in-house are of no interest and show that there is a big lack of skills in terms of level design and game design. Now that the studio has amassed a small fortune with its successful launch, it would be time to hire competent people to implement their vision, in addition to the very good animators they already have. In the meantime, we frankly do not advise you to embark on the adventure, but rather to wait until the arrival of real content.

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