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Blacklight Tango Down Preview 1

An exciting new download-only FPS is headed our way in Summer via Xbox Live, the Playstation Network and PC download channels.  Titled Blacklight: Tango Down, it is a multiplayer FPS built on the Unreal Engine and it's download only release is similar to that of Battlefield 1943 last year.  Based on the initial facts though Blacklight Tango Down looks more ambitious and more impressive and is exactly the kind of thing I want to see from game downloads this year - exciting new full games taking advantage of the hardware's capabilities.  We'll be following Blacklight Tango Down as much as possible and you can check out the latest details below.

Ignition Entertainment has revealed  the first  insight  into  the back story, setting and weapons of their upcoming multiplayer-focused first-person-shooter Blacklight: Tango Down, currently in development at Zombie Studios.

Blacklight Tango Down is a fully featured Unreal Engine 3.0-powered game set to release this summer exclusively through Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PlayStation®Store, and through digital distribution channels on PC, making it one of the most advanced games ever released solely through downloadable channels.

WHAT IS BLACKLIGHT?

Blacklight: Tango Down is set in the near future and revolves around a special operations military group called “Blacklight.” Blacklight is the SECDEF’s (Secretary of Defense’s) personal direct action team comprised entirely of “Tier One Assets.”  These elite soldiers are extraordinary operators recruited from all branches of special operations, including Combat Applications Group (Delta), SF, DEVGRU (SEAL), RANGER, and CIA MSP.  All combatants are hand-selected and trained specifically to be equipped to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations.  This is the player’s role in the game.

THE WORLD OF BLACKLIGHT: TANGO DOWN

Blacklight: Tango Down’s near-future setting is not that different from our own time and will appear hauntingly familiar to gamers but also distant enough to be surprising and unsettling.  It is a universe that has been overtaken by the exploding speed of technological progress and is left suffering from the unbridled failures that those advances create.

The technological overbuild has created a bleak environment which has transformed once vibrant and familiar cityscapes into dark and endless virtual billboards and danger zones.  An ongoing viral epidemic ravages society and the military’s drive to control and use the virus as a weapon has only created more devastating strains.  Civilians and governments struggle through ongoing unrest.  Order can only be imposed through force and fear.

The military’s attempts to weaponise the virus has lead to what some call “Q-Fever” or SIV (Sentient Insanity Virus) and the people it infects are known as SIVs.  The virus destroys a person’s humanity, transforming them into frightening creatures that are less capable of utilizing tools but are far more aggressive and impervious to pain.

SCIENCE FACT, NOT FICTION

Blacklight: Tango Down is set in a universe that is based in Science Fact, not Science Fiction.  The future combat technologies and weapons featured in the game are based on the bleeding-edge military developments and breakthroughs of today.  Whereas currently, in our real world, these items may exist only in the laboratory or in conceptual designs, in Blacklight: Tango Down, these advanced military tools are deployed mainstream and make up the military reality of the game.

This “science fact” equipment includes exciting new future weapons and support systems, like EMP grenades that disable opponents’ electronic visors, Digi-Grenades that distort the optics of enemies, reactive body armor and widely customizable weapons.  The most iconic piece of Blacklight technology is the “Hyper Reality Visor,” a head piece that uses its own electronic pulse and nearby electro-magnetic fields to render the world in a new way, allowing soldiers to see what is otherwise invisible.