The first map we played with this gametype was known as Court, taking place in an outdoor courtyard that had the soldiers spawning on one end, and the infected player on the other. Even though Hayden may be much more powerful than the soldiers, there are still more of them, so it’s wise to try to outflank them by taking a side route around the courtyard and go for some gruesome stealth kills. The environmental power ups are also present in multiplayer, such as fire and electricity, that help increase the damage potential of the glaive. Overall, we found Infection to be a pretty interesting asymmetrical game. It’s important for the soldiers to work together to take down the more powerful infected player, but the greed of wanting to play has him next will surely test the cooperative incentive of those playing as the soldiers.

The next mode we tried was known as Epidemic, which pits two teams against one another, each with an infected player and soldiers there to protect them, so basically it’s VIP. This mode presented an interesting dynamic that requires teamwork again, as the soldiers must protect their infected player, but the infected player must also watch out for his friends who won’t last long against the enemy infected VIP. We played this mode on a slightly larger map that took place on a stone fort-like pier drenched in rain. This is also a good time to point out that Dark Sector’s graphics appear to be carrying quite well over to multiplayer, especially in the richly detailed and bloody finishing moves of the glaive that made us wince every time we fell victim to it.

Getting the drop on the enemy with cloaking

Again, it’s important to play smart as a soldier taking on an infected player. Rather than try to attack them outright, it’s probably better to avoid that glaive, which you can hear coming at you, and lure them into your trip mines. There were some intense moments when the infected players on each team got into a glaive throwing showdown, which made the soldier players a little jealous, yearning for more of this infected on infected combat. We were playing with six participants, setting each team up with only two support soldiers, so this game type will probably be more enjoyable when playing with the max 10, allowing for more varied strategies.

Although there was the ability to take cover, the gameplay moved pretty fast so we didn’t find ourselves making much use of it. Another issue was the identification of fellow players. When coming across a fellow soldier, we were unable to see that they were friendlies until we were zoomed in; thankfully, friendly fire was turned off. We still can’t make a final judgement on multiplayer given the fact that this event was not online, so it remains to be seen how matchmaking and overall network quality will turn out.

We all know how crowded the online action game market is, but the folks at Digital Extremes made it clear that they had no intention of competing with the likes of Call of Duty 4. Project Lead Steve Sinclair explained that the multiplayer experience of Dark Sector is meant to be specific to that of the franchise, rather than trying to emulate another. We can appreciate the developer being up front about not trying to cram Dark Sector into a shoe that won’t fit, but at only two different modes it just feels a little lacking. This isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy ourselves, but at the moment Dark Sector’s multiplayer appears to be the icing on the cake that is the game’s very impressive single player campaign.

Dark Sector is set to release on PS3 and Xbox 360 this March.