In theory, Murderous Pursuits should’ve been amazing; its premise basically boils down to a multiplayer-only Assassin’s Creed, but with some extra twists thrown in. Based on how its closed beta was originally received, it looked hopeful that the full release would be spectacular. However, this isn’t the case.
The game serves as somewhat of a spiritual successor to The Ship: Murder Party. However, despite the connections, the new game isn’t as high-quality as The Ship: Murder Party might imply.
The Concept
Murderous Pursuits‘ core concept is that of a number of players being dropped into the one area with a bunch of lookalikes in order to, you guessed it, murder each other. Building upon this, players are given quite a few unique ways to kill the other players while scouring through the NPCs. In fact, the game encourages players to get creative, offering extra points for more creative kills.
As a concept, it works pretty well; players have to use cunning and ingenuity rather than simple reflexes and offers an enjoyable competitive experience. It can be exhilarating when you’re caught up in a close match, deftly maneuvering through the crowd to reach your target while you keep a wary eye out for any other players who are also hunting you.
Cracks In The System
In the transition from beta to full game, Blazing Griffin added two forms of progression into Murderous Pursuits: unlockable skins for each playable character (skins which can only be unlocked by earning favor points as that character in Quick Play), and a more traditional XP-based system that allows players to level up by completing Quick Play matches.
The problem is that neither of these progression systems is very deep or compelling. The skins are mostly just color swaps of the character’s normal outfit. There is also a collection of more unique-looking ‘Mr. X skins,’ but they can only be obtained by purchasing the game’s $29.99 deluxe version (non-deluxe is $19.99).
Conclusion
Despite its flaws, Murderous Pursuits can still be an enjoyable game, eventually. It’s only been released and isn’t long out of closed beta, so it seems like it’s only upwards from here. As much as I wanted to like it, in its current state, it’s bogged down by multiplayer quirks and shallow progressions. Hopefully, it’ll be updated and patched pretty soon to fix these problems. Until then, the game is going to languish with very few players.