Dirty Bomb explodes into open beta next week

Splash Damage’s free-to-play team-based shooter, Dirty Bomb, will be blasting its way into open beta on 2 June.

Dirty Bomb is already available in pricey “closed beta” form, with £14.99 netting you access to the game, as well as a Merc Starter Pack that offers five Mercenaries for you to use in the game itself. Alternatively, you can wait until 2 June and hop in for free.

I haven’t played it so I have no idea how well it’s going, but Dirty Bomb is aiming to be a very fast-paced, very team-focused shooter. It takes a few cues from MOBAs – rather than classes you have individual Mercenaries, all of whom have wildly different weapons and skills, and all of whom have interesting synergies with the rest of the Mercs. That sounds a little bit Team Fortress 2, mind you, especially when one of the characters is a speedy character with a shotgun and a cricket bat.

A new video, which you can see below, shows off plenty of gameplay footage and has the team discussing what makes the game unique and how it works. Dirty Bomb is aimed to be free-to-play and genuinely free-to-win; if Splash Damage manage to pull that off and combine it with a genuinely unique shooter, they might be onto something. If not, though, then it might have difficulty competing with more established shooters like the aforementioned Team Fortress 2.