When I sat down for the Agents of Mayhem demo at E3 2016, I was not quite sure what to expect. Agents of Mayhem is a brand new IP from the developers at Volition and it takes place in a world where the Saints are part of an organization called M.A.Y.H.E.M., whose goal is to stop the villains of L.E.G.I.O.N. from taking over the world. Your squad per mission is made up of three people that you have to carefully choose from the at-large field, and you can swap between them at will during the mission.
For the Agents of Mayhem demo, I was given an opportunity to choose between four different people, all of whom had different talents. They are: 1) Hollywood, whose primary weapon was an assault rifle; 2) Hardtack, who packs a shotgun for close-range combat; 3) Fortune, who carried dual futuristic pistols; and 4) Rama, armed with a bow and arrow that could attack from a distance.
I played with all four characters through one-and-a-half playthroughs, and they all fought differently. I quickly found myself fluidly switching on the fly between characters to use whatever weapon was needed. All characters had a second ability on a timer that I would mix in as well (such as Hardtrack having a harpoon to pull enemies in close or Fortune being able to slow all enemies down around her for easy targeting). After using the secondary ability several times, I would then be able to use a character’s M.A.Y.H.E.M. power, which would cause widespread devastation to enemies.
The Agents of Mayhem demo takes place in Seoul, Korea. M.A.Y.H.E.M. was tasked with rescuing a kidnapped A.I. popstar who, midway through the mission, turned bad and wanted to marry a cyborg who was part of L.E.G.I.O.N. And the way to get to the place where she was being held hostage was by pressing a button in a trash can. In other words, while the combat in Agents of Mayhem is not as zany as it was in Saints Row 4 (and the ultimate attacks here aren’t anything like the superpowers in Saints Row 4), the over-the-top humor and dialogue is still intact.
For a new IP, Agents of Mayhem is a worthy re-imagining of the Saints Row franchise that is fun, has great combat mechanics, and is definitely a title that fans of the series will enjoy.
Images were captured from the trailer provided by Deep Silver.
Are you looking forward to Agents of Mayhem? Who of the four characters in the trailer do you like the best? Let us know in the comments below!
