Preview: ‘Den of Wolves’ has a bit of ‘Inception’ in the middle of a heist

Let’s make this clear. “Den of Wolves” is no April Fools’ joke. 10 Chambers’ second project is a game that, according to them, needed to be made after the success of “GTFO.” The techno-thriller concept had lingered in the minds of co-founder Ulf Andersson and his team, and it was a vision that had to come to life on screen.

The game follows the evolution of Andersson’s previous projects, “PayDay: The Heist” and its sequel. Those titles establish a foundation for the genre that 10 Chambers has specialized in. They’re experts at crafting four-player cooperative heist games. These are titles where players collaborate with friends or strangers to rob a bank or free a detainee, but before the actual score, they have to do pre-missions that lead up to the main event.

EVOLVING GAMEPLAY
“Den of Wolves” works in a similar way, but because it’s set in a sci-fi world, 10 Chambers has more freedom to explore the space. In the year 2097, artificial intelligence and hackers have wreaked havoc on the global economy, destabilizing markets and governments. To bring the world’s finances back to normal, corporations set up an unregulated but secure corporate haven on the island of Midway. It’s where all the major businesses set up an office, and it’s a place rife with corporate espionage and other grey economic activity.

What makes this area secure is that scientists discovered a way to securely store data. They do it in artificial brains that are much harder to hack and require access via a difficult procedure called a Dive.

I had a chance to play a demo of a heist. I played a pre-mission and a main quest in the Promise District. Instead of being a grunt for a higher-up as in “Payday,” “Den of Wolves” treats players as criminal entrepreneurs who call their own shots. I started off with my team of four talking about the two weapons and one tool I would bring on the mission.

The first part focused on grabbing attack drones from a vault, and that foray took about 15 minutes or so. One of the immediate elements I noticed is that stealth is often rewarded. It’s detrimental to go in firing like Rambo. The squad initially has a cloaking device that helped conceal our presence, but as all co-op missions with strangers go, the stealth portion didn’t last long.

AFTER STEALTH BREAKS DOWN, SCATTERED GUNFIGHTS
Soon, my squad was in numerous gunfights as we made our way to the vault to attach our spider drills. In “Den of Wolves,” it’s always best to move in a group because players never know what’s around the corner, and they can be easily ambushed. When players’ health dips to zero, they’re incapacitated and must wait for teammates to revive them.

During the mission, my rifle proved effective as the firefights were long-distance rather than in tight quarters. I picked the deployable shield as my gadget, and it was a lifesaver as we ended up pinned while facing a flood of guards. The only thing players have to watch out for is that its strength diminishes as it soaks up damage. The benefit is that it’s easy to deploy and players can see and fire through it.

We were able to grab the drone and extra loot bags. Of course, we had to fight our way to the escape point. Players have the opportunity to finish the mission and leave, but those who want a bigger score can grab more loot bags from the vault; they just have to fight their way to the exit with the treasure. If they fall, they may discover that there’s no one who can save them. It’s a high-risk, high-reward play.

The players’ performance on the pre-mission has a bigger impact on the main mission. If they mess up, they could find more guards because their actions alerted the gang, or going after more loot could unlock another drill instead of having just one in the second mission.

THE MAIN MISSION
The main mission had players delivering drones to a gang that took over a bank, which held the mind of a target named Bauman in a vault. The drones were designed to go haywire, creating chaos and an opening to access the brain with secrets. At the event, the 10 Chambers team had a physical map showing the schematics of the level, and we made a game plan focused on searching for the keys in each vault and setting up an exfiltration point at the window.

We planned to go on a circular route, searching each vault for the three keys. The developer randomizes which vault holds the item. We had two spider drills, but because we had an ad-hoc team, we figured sticking together was the best plan, though it would be slower. If our team were more experienced, having splitting up would have made the process more efficient.

The heist played out with an initial incursion, eliminating the gang members lingering in the main hall. We posted up in front of the vault and guarded the drills as they did worked and methodically made our way around. Occasionally, gang members would come rushing in and that’s when auto sentry guns would be useful. After deploying a gadget, players could retrieve them so they could be fired off again as needed.

Partyway through the level, we opened up the windows creating an exit for when the mission was finished. We blasted off the coverings and went to the control room creating bigger openings. Eventually, we found the keys needed to open the vault containing Bauman, but that marked the two-thirds point of the mission. We had access to his brain, but now, we had to create a Dive point by setting up three nodes around the main hall. That again involved defending each point, and when it was done, we could do the Dive, which is the climax of the mission.

A DREAMY SCENARIO
This is when “Den of Wolves” gets weird as players enter an “Inception”-like environment, where physics becomes elastic and the world is fragmented. It’s a dreamlike scenario that lets 10 Chambers stretch its creative muscles and craft unusual scenarios that go against the hard sci-fi world. In Bauman’s mind, we had to go through three platforming stages where we had to figure out the right path, walking along walls and ceilings, jumping between rooms and heading to the end point.

The Dive is timed, and it must be completed by at least one person so that the team passes. If the squad doesn’t finish the Dive, they have to do the whole triangulation process again, setting up nodes. Co-founder Simon Viklud said the Dives can vary. It isn’t always going to be abstract or focus on platforming. As a composer, he tried to create an odd time signature for the Dive that has “a cool beat but a weird rhythm.”

“I look at every Dive, what it does it need to convey, the feeling,” he said.

When players go into the Dive, 10 Chambers creates a notable muting effect that reverses when players come out. The world muffles going into a Dive and coming out it sounds like radio static that crystalizes into reality.

Before going into a mind, it’s best for players to get into cover because the jump is immediate, and in the Dive, time has no meaning. In the dream-like world, players are jumping around, and it takes a few minutes, but in the real world of the game, jumping into and out of the Dive is nearly instantaneous. Players can be in a firefight, go into a Dive for a secon,d and be right back in the middle of the battle. If players aren’t in a safe place, they can catch a bullet.

Although it sounds like an arduous process, the main mission only took 27:14 minutes because we managed to complete the Dive in our first go, but it could take longer if we had more failures. Viklud said they don’t have an ideal time for a mission line but would rather let the team’s creativity define the experience so that they can convey “whatever story we want to tell.”

That imaginative freedom seems to be a driving force for “Den of Wolves” as it becomes a new outlet for 10 Chambers to craft fascinating scenarios that make the game feel more like an evolved form of “Payday: The Heist.”

“Den of Wolves” is still in the works, but I played the demo on a PC running Steam.