So saturated with copycats is the Battle Royale genre at this stage that doing anything remotely different to the big two feels like a triumph in itself. Being mechanically and visually functional can’t hurt either.

Vostok Games’ Fear The Wolves and its spin on the genre of choice has got some good, different, ideas going for it. Unfortunately, it certainly isn’t anywhere near as enjoyable as the market leaders at this stage.

What exactly does Fear The Wolves do differently then? Well for starters it goes into greater, more varied, detail in terms of the cut and thrust of your typical Battle Royale experience, with the weather and wildlife not only out to get you, but also affect how you play. Spectating players can even vote on what horrid weather shows up next in a final act of spite and vengeance against those who may have killed them.

Fear The Wolves also throws in some old-fashioned radiation for good measure as the game is set in Chernobyl, or rather a fictionalized version of it where mutant beasts roam the wilds (Fear The Wolves is created by many of the team behind similarily Chernobyl-set S.TA.L.K.E.R.). Said beasts include the titular wolves, hulking great monstrosities that offer a whole other threat beyond radiation and the occasional car/bullet/axe to the head. They can be utilized as a weapon against others by luring them into range and making a hasty exit (not easy) or they can act as encouragement in solo mode to form brief alliances to try and keep their slavering jaws off your collective necks.

They’ll likely end up being Fear The Wolves‘ best asset in the long run. Currently, they are inconsistent threats that are best avoided. The animation isn’t especially helpful either in this nascent form of Fear The Wolves as there’s a touch of unintentional hilarity to the menace they should pose. Still, there’s no denying that when things click, there’s a fresh thrill to being hunted by both man and beast, escaping to the relative safety of a battered old car seconds before your throat is torn out by the radioactive lupine menace.

The other main highlight of Fear The Wolves is in its endgame. Yes, the basic principle is the same old ‘last person standing wins’, but here you get a nice extra touch of risk and reward that shakes up the formula. During the finale of any match, a helicopter descends with the offer of a free ticket out of the radioactive hell hole if you can climb its rope to freedom that is without being picked off by other survivors. It’s a mad tussle that’s a sight to behold. If only it was a better-looking sight.

The elephant (or mutant wolf) in the room is how technically-deficient Fear The Wolves is at this juncture. Yes, a certain Battle Royale heavyweight was itself a shoddy mess in its youth (and still isn’t quite there either), but even with a delay, Fear The Wolves enters early access in a surprisingly messy state.

The promotional material for the game showed a much better-looking game for a start. Even ramping up the settings and threatening the safety of my computer’s innards didn’t make Fear The Wolves look close to as good as it does in trailers. That alone is nothing too impactful if the game itself is consistently enjoyable. PUBG won many people over with its deliciously addictive gameplay loop despite its many technical woes. More often than not, Fear The Wolves‘ many technical hitches just make a potentially enticing gameplay loop harder to dig into and really enjoy.

The game freezes to an alarming degree at times, causing rather unjust eliminations and killing the flow of the match. When it’s not freezing, the frame rate is yo-yo-ing between remotely steady and a screenshot gallery. Of course, you can expect a game in Early Access to feel unfinished, but it’s the gap between what’s shown in trailers and what we actually get that really rams home how much work has to be done to make Fear The Wolves a contender.

Finding a game took some time on all but a couple of occasions, and not once did I see anything close to the full remit of 100 players competing. This could well be the result of the aforementioned issues or just down to the sheer glut of Battle Royale titles on PC right now.

Great concept or not, the game has to be entertaining to a pretty consistent degree if it is to gain good word of mouth and maintain a player base. Right now, that’s the biggest hurdle facing Fear The Wolves. Vostok Games has an uphill struggle to turn the tide quickly in order to stay at the Battle Royale table long enough to see a full release.