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SOS is a battle royale survival game, developed by Outpost Games, that made a splash on Twitch last night, when rapper Snoop Dogg streamed it on his personal channel.
A celebrity endorsement is a smart way to market a game in a crowded genre, and Snoop Dogg broadcast to 80,000 viewers to show them what the game was all about. It was certainly a unique way to experience the game, with Snoop screaming and hollering while in an alliance with some bemused players while smoking weed, something that’s 100% legal thanks to California’s new rules regarding marijuana.
Slightly more troubling is the fact that, as soon as he meets a female character, Snoop Dogg starts making comments about how attractive the character is, and how he was going to sleep with her. "Sweetie, you keep talking soft like that," Snoop says at one stage, " we gonna find one of these bushes to fall down in."
It seems like everyone is in on the joke, but it still feels like a grim reminder of how unfriendly Twitch is to women in recent times.
The game is unusual, as it seems to be a battle royale game focusing on player personality. The battle royale game features 16 players on an island trying to survive long enough to pick up a relic and then call a helicopter for extraction. Die and you’re dead, but the game’s unique Hero platformer enables people watching the game to cheer on competitors, meaning players are encouraged to play up their personalities instead of just murdering everyone you see on sight.
Whether an endorsement from Snoop Dogg and this unique concept is enough to bring in an audience for SOS remains to be seen, but the game has now launched on Steam’s Early Access program for $30, but there are also $60 and $100 versions with additional bells and whistles, if you like bells/whistles.
