The developers at Ready at Dawn did something pretty incredible in the VR world in 2017. They released both Echo Arena and Lone Echo, two distinct experiences with shared zero-G gameplay mechanics that were among the year's best multiplayer and single player VR games, respectively. And now with Echo Combat, the studio looks poised to build on the same core of Tron-style visuals and Ender's Game gameplay: only this time players will have guns and grenades strapped to their robotic bodies.

Guns in zero gravity

Echo Combat is a multiplayer VR FPS game coming exclusively to the Oculus Rift with Touch controls. It will be $9.99 when it launches, and will be accessible through the same lobby experience as the other Echo games.

Every single person I've ever met who has played either Echo Arena or Lone Echo or really even the Echo lobby experience) has instantly fallen in love with the movement mechanics. There's just something intensely satisfying and fun about grabbing objects and pushing off of them to move around in zero gravity, and it just becomes more entertaining when you can play catch, zoom around with wrist rockets, and talk to the strangers flying around you.

Echo Combat adds in wrist-mounted weapons, shoulder-mounted explosives, and a small pool of special abilities, all of which you can switch between any time you die and return to the game's respawn area. The experience doesn't change the core Echo movement mechanics, aside from the fact that firing your gun when you aren't holding on to anything will push you gently backward, away from the direction you fire. The disc and goals of Echo Arena are gone, and the new point of the game is to shoot and destroy your robotic foes across a variety of game modes.

Weapons and abilities

There were three different gun types available in the game's pre-E3 demo: essentially a shotgun, pistol, and long-range railgun. After some experimentation I stuck with the pistol for my gameplay, as it seemed to be the best and most reliable option overall on a map that provided a mix of long sight lines and intense up-close battles. There were also two shoulder-mounted disc weapons to equip, which look and function a lot like Echo Arena's disc. One of the options disables enemies in a range around the thrown disc, while the other explodes when activated, after it is thrown, and can do significant damage with proper timing.

The three abilities available to choose from effectively turned players into distinct "classes." There is a healing beam for the medically-inclined, a placeable barrier that can be fired through by your team, and a radar pulse that reveals lurking enemies through obstacles. All three abilities proved to be useful in my demo, and though the radar felt the least essential, it saved my life more than a few times by giving me a few precious seconds of advance warning before an ambush.

The developers didn't share any information about additional weapons or abilities planned for the game, aside from a nonspecific discussion of unlockable content, but it seems likely that there will be more variety yet to come. Ready at Dawn have shown an admirable willingness to tweak and overhaul Echo Arena in response to player feedback and to keep the game fresh, and with Oculus publishing money behind them and significant traction in the VR e-sports scene it's likely they'll do the same for Echo Combat.

Protect the payload, in VR

I had a chance to go hands-on with two rounds of Echo Combat's payload-focused mode. One team (with three players on both sides) is tasked with escorting a moving payload: a sci-fi swan boat that moves along glowing tracks. It moves as long as a member of the attacking team has a hand on it, while the defending team does their best to slow them down and reverse their progress.

Prior to the start of the match, and each time you die during the action, players find themselves in a planning area which features a mini version of the game's map in the center. During a match ally and enemy locations will even be visible on this map, live, so there may be potential strategic value in communicating this information to your teammates via the game's voice chat, while you wait for the fairly forgiving respawn timer.

Echo Combat's payload mode has the same basic structure as what you'll find in Overwatch, with a short game timer continually counting down, and more time added when key checkpoints are reached. Thanks to the game's zero gravity movement, though, even this familiar match format feels totally fresh and new. Winning a match of Echo Combat requires full 360-degree awareness, and it's immediately clear how important movement skill and the ability to think in three dimensions will be to success.

Right at the start of the first match in which I played, our payload was approaching an enemy barrier up ahead, and we were taking fire. I pushed off the payload and snuck down and around some of the map's large floating polygons, hugging close to obstacles until I was firing up at my enemies from their flank, catching them totally off guard and breaking their defenses. It felt great, both tactical and fast-paced, and moments like this just kept coming throughout my matches. It was an absolute blast from start to finish.

Kills take about two to three seconds of continuous shooting with the pistol, which felt just about right in practice. My opponents usually had enough time to realize that they were being shot and to start to try to fire back or get away, but rarely managed to escape if I caught them flat-footed and unaware.

The attacking team won each of my two matches with what felt like fairly evenly matched teams, but there was never a lot of time left at the dramatic finish, so it was clearly close. The developers also made it clear that there are other modes planned beyond the payload-focused one. A simple team deathmatch would be enjoyable all on its own, and a spin on capture the flag could be a great way to emphasize the game's movement mechanics.

Does this mean there will be guns in Echo Arena?

So will we see some combination of Echo Arena's disc sport and Echo Combat's weapons? The developers didn't have anything official to announce about that yet, but unofficially they're already doing just that as they test out Echo Combat. In fact I got to try a casual bit of "Echo Arena with guns" for myself, in between matches, and having a wrist-mounted pistol adds a fun twist to the passing and fist-fighting gameplay.

The integration would be fairly seamless, especially considering Echo Arena is free, and accessible through the same lobby as Echo Combat (though that game will cost $9.99). At this point I'd be surprised if some disc-and-guns combo mode isn't available down the road.

Echo Combat is set to make an ever bigger impact than Echo Arena, because there's just more of an audience out there for a team-based FPS than a weird sci-fi ultimate frisbee game. The deep Facebook pockets behind Oculus are clearly doing some heavy lifting by providing a game of this level and potential appeal for just $9.99, and when Echo Combat launches it will be another strong exclusive in the Oculus lineup.

Or potentially another really good reason to be running ReVive.

The free open beta for Echo Combat will be launching on June 21. Visit the game's official website to sign up.