Spectre Divide review: Two-body problem

You’re either a tactical shooter fan or you’re not. There is no in between. And if you’re a fanatic, you probably have your one game that you like to play, and though you might dabble in another, you’ll always return to your comfort place. Mountaintop Studios is looking to enter the highly competitive genre with its own creation, Spectre Divide. While its Spectre mechanic is neat, there’s not enough that’s unique about this 3v3 game that will draw you out of your comfort place and keep you sticking around for long. The guns don’t standout, the pacing of matches is incredibly slow, there are features missing at launch, and the monetization is egregious.

Two bodies, one mind

Spectre Divide is a tactical shooter where two teams of three take turns attempting to plant a bomb in one another's base. If you’ve played Counter-Strike or Valorant, you know the drill. However, the key difference with this game is its namesake mechanic: the Spectres. Each player gets two characters per match, which they can switch between at any point. Throw a puck, and the character you’re not currently controlling will zip over to the spot where the puck lands.

The Spectre effectively gives each player two chances to make a difference during a round. After a couple of rounds of leaving my Spectre at spawn, I started to lean into the whole two-body idea. Sometimes I would place my Spectre at a corner in one site while I pushed the other. If I was certain the opponent would push a specific lane, I’d set up my two bodies at opposite corners to cover different angles.

Being able to throw the puck also opens up more verticality in the maps. You can huck a puck onto a raised box or a ledge to gain a height advantage. Similarly, if each of your three opponents is down a body, you know they can’t access elevated areas. The Spectre mechanic is a simple concept with enough depth to create ample opportunities for clever strategizing.

Ghost towns

As a 3v3 game, you’re not just another cog in the machine but an important part of a team. Losing a player early in a match can feel far more disastrous in Spectre Divide than it does in other tactical shooters. However, while there’s more onus put on the individual, the small player count in a match and the large maps end up making the environments feel empty.

The problem of the barren levels is compounded with how sluggish the movement feels. There’s a heaviness to the characters that causes the game to have a glacial pace, which doesn’t ease up as you’re staring down the barrel of first-to-eight wins.

This is somewhat alleviated when you actually get into combat. Before each match, players will choose which Sponsor they wish to represent. This Sponsor gives each player a unique set of abilities to use during a match like a cluster grenade, a shield wall, a cloning device, or some other piece of tech. When combat eventually breaks out, the area is filled with a collection of unique effects that force you to re-evaluate your tactic.

Unfortunately, none of these felt as impactful as Valorant’s hero abilities and aren’t gratifying to use. There’s a lack of feedback from landing a particularly nasty grenade throw that takes out an opponent hiding behind cover. Similarly, netting multiple kills in a row has almost no fan-fare.

Spectre Divide’s combat and tactics just wind up feeling too safe. It does everything competently, but none of it plays dramatically better than the other titles in the genre.

Little shop of horrors

While I might sound all down in the doldrums about the matches, there is certainly fun to be had. It’s not bombastic, but it is something that will tickle the interest of many people. What definitely isn’t a laughing matter is everything happening outside of the matches.

Let’s ignore the elephant in the room first. There’s this strange situation in Spectre Divide where the screen can be packed full of information but it’s tough to divine what that information is trying to say. I sat staring at the Crew screen, pictured above, trying to work out what I was doing, what I needed to do, and why I should want to do it. Growing pains are to be expected in a new game, but sometimes you just need to provider clearer analysis of info.

There are also a few features that aren’t available yet, ones you sort of assume should be good to go straight away. The Careers page, which presumably tracks your match history and progress, is unavailable, as is the Battle Pass.

But now, the meat and potatoes: the microtransactions. Outside of the match, you can choose to be endorsed by a Sponsor. This means any XP you accrue from the game will be funneled into this Sponsor, leveling it up and unlocking banners, sprays, and weapon charms.

There are eight Sponsors to begin with, but four of them are locked. In order to unlock them, you’ll need to be endorsed by them and then spend time grinding out hundreds of thousands of XP. After two games, I’d managed to net about 12,000 XP.

I’m of two minds about this: I think giving players more content to unlock by playing is good, but it’s a slippery slope toward the egregious Star Wars: Battlefront 2 levels of grind. To make matters worse, you can always unlock them using every free-to-play game’s favorite currency: actual money.

Herein lies Spectre Divides biggest problem: The microtransactions are outrageously expensive. At launch, the game has a featured Cryo Kinesis Bundle of weapon skins, banners, and charms for a cool 7,000 SP, down from 9,800 SP. A quick look at the currency purchase screen shows no 7,000 or even 9,800 selections, only 5,600 for $49.99 USD or 11,500 for $99.99 USD. That equates to $60 USD for the skin pack, assuming you fork over for the big bundle.

If the cost wasn’t bad enough, the actual quality of the skins leaves much to be desired. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn when I say that the skins are boring. To salt the wound further, once purchased, you can level up the skins to unlock new things for it – or buy the levels using real money!

At every single turn, Spectre Divide is there with both hands out. One hand holds hours of grinding to unlock some basic skins while the other, pressed right up under your nose, is a paid-for shortcut.

Two-Body Problem

Spectre Divide’s main selling point, the Spectre mechanic, is admittedly rather cool. It’s great to get a second chance at a tactical shooter mid-round. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like a strong enough hook to draw players across from the other games that have solidified themselves as the leaders in the genre. Add to this the problems with match pacing, bland weapons, and laughable microtransaction prices and you’ve got a game that is unlikely to convince hardcore fans to dive in, let alone keep players around for the long run.

This review is based on the free-to-play Steam version of Spectre Divide.

Sam Chandler

Guides Editor

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as a Guides Editor. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler