Here lies Reaper Actual, an open-world, MMO first-person shooter. Developed and published by Distinct Possibility Studios, Inc., it is the first project for this team, a massive undertaking in a large-scale PvPvE open-world shooter, currently in Alpha.

Reaper Actual is set in Marova, a fictional island. You take control of what’s called a ‘Reaper’ or a ‘mercenary’, split between five factions. Marova is recovering from a civil war, with each faction trying to take control and each with an agenda.

With a server cap of 200 and filtered AI, you’ll spend your time doing missions for each faction. Now, while such a large-scale map sounds fun, with both players and AI to kill and an inventory-style system that somewhat mirrors games like Tarkov, the game is still in Alpha, which makes it less enjoyable.

You, as a Reaper, can change and reshape the world with PvP and NPC fights all in real time, making what you do important.

Available to you in Reaper Actual are a few fun things.

Base building and raids – build your own base, which will be a palace for storing gear and a respawn point. Also, it’s a place that other players can raid, making a fortified base essential. These bases can be developed in different ways depending on your play style, but in the current build of the game, the limited player base makes it difficult to progress and pointless if no one is there to attack it.

Customise your Reaper – trick out your Reaper to your style, loadouts, and perks to suit how you play. Given the arsenal of weapons available to you, either a breaching shotgun or a long-range sniper, there is a gun to suit all. I am sweet to a sniper, and while fighting some rage-inducing server stability, the sniper itself didn’t disappoint.

Modular weapons – given the ability to customise how your gun looks with attachments, components, and optics, switch it up to suit each situation as you play.

To compare Reaper Actual to anything, think of Escape from Tarkov: you load in, kill enemies, and they drop weapons, ammo, armour plates, all for you to exfil with or continue the good fight.

Vests which hold different amounts of plates (armour) can be found on certain NPCs and are very good at absorbing shots – all basic things for this type of shooter these days, though credit where it’s due, Reaper Actual does seem less tedious.

Given that Reaper Actual is still in early access, it looks nice visually, with room to grow on the baseline it has set for itself; it does make you feel like you are in some kind of civil war.

Some work may need to be done here, as the audio sometimes does not match the visual of bullets flying past your head and an AI that can make no sense at times, but credit where it’s due, the hearing for footsteps seems to be mostly accurate, and crouching to achieve silent steps seems to work as intended.

I’d recommend a greater focus on server stability; much of this game seemed unenjoyable to me in its current form, and it was hard to flesh out all that was offered at this stage of its development. Listening to what the community has to say about the game will help the game grow. It’s sad to see a game that has much potential come across as a mere money grab to so many. There should be consideration given to fixing the fundamentals first.

It’s all too normal these days to release a game in early access or Alpha, and Reaper Actual doesn’t stray far from this norm. Its release in this state has left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

I don’t find that, for the price, it’s worth playing a game in a state most would consider unplayable, and I hope the future of this game doesn’t end here.

Written by: Matiyus