I recently had the opportunity to play Nosgoth’s upcoming map, The Nest. If you haven’t played the game, Nosgoth is a team-based multiplayer game developed by Psyonix and set in the world of the Legacy of Kain games. It is the first in the series to be released in over ten years, with Legacy of Kain Defiance having launched in 2003 on the Playstation 2. Psyonix are best known for their recent smash hit, Rocket League, as well as its predecessor Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars.
My favorite aspect of Nosgoth is the fact that the two teams are not the same mirrored opposites that you find in many other games. There are drastic differences in how both teams work, and knowing how to play to those strengths and avoid their weaknesses is key if you want any chance at victory. The humans rely on more primitive means of offense, in the form of weapons like crossbows and potions that create fire and light. They fight best when able to keep their target at a length, peppering them with bolts and arrows. The humans rely on nodes across the map to replenish health and ammunition.
The vampires, on the other hand, are more up close and personal. They can scale the sides of buildings, pounce on victims or knock them to the ground, and even pick them up and carry them into the sky in order to inflict damage. Vampires perform best in the middle of chaos, splitting up the human team and picking them off one by one, or slamming into the group and scattering them around.
And the variety of characters is easily the greatest strength of Nosgoth. No matter which side you play, or which character, every class has their own unique play style to love or hate, and each character must be dealt with as an individual threat. The fact that the game is five vs five means that your contribution, or lack thereof, are all the more important to your team.
So the map we played on is called The Nest, it is a large map with about as many open spaces as closed. The layout is covered in medium to tall buildings, giving the vampire team plenty of places to climb up and escape danger or plot their next ambush. For the players, however, there were also plenty of open areas and buildings to enter, mitigating the threat from above. It’s also easy for the human team to get too close, putting the whole group at risk of area of effect attacks and ground slams from the larger vampires.
The most disappointing part of our play session was the, ultimately, it came to an end. Nosgoth looks great, handles well, and is fun enough that the time melts away. Unfortunately, the game’s matchmaking in my experience and as pointed out in the community, is a painful slog that often takes longer to find a game than most people are willing to wait. Much longer.
If you have some time to spare, I highly recommend giving Nosgoth a chance. Check out one of the rounds I played on The Nest below
MMO Fallout 