Disintegration
Review

Disintegration (2020) is a sci-fi shooting game, from some of the developers behind Halo and XCom, that combines first-person combat and real-time battlefield strategy.

It's set in Earth's future where, as a temporary way to survive humans have preserved their lives (and brains) by integrating with robotic armatures. However the temporary became the norm and a new organisation is keeping people locked into their robotic technology.

You play Romer, who has been combined with a robot but has rebelled to lead a small group of outlaws to fight back and survive. You aim to build a resistance with the aim of freeing humanity from its robotic prisons.

The single-player campaign takes you on a journey as Romer, commanding your crew on missions to leverage a variety of unique unit abilities and support weapons to win each battle. You are on the Gravcycle, but also tell the rest of the squad how to direct their firepower.

It's intentionally hard, so you have to lean both on strategy as well as accurate firepower. With patience, you learn how to interact with the battle in this new way.

There are three multiplayer modes (Zone control, Collector and Retrieval) set in a variety of locations. The same approach of Gravocycle and team command is found here, although you get to choose between different teams for special abilities.

The result is an interesting game that offers an adventure about systemic control, human determination and against-the-odds perseverance. It combines two usually separate games, strategy and shooting, into a coherent whole.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Disintegration 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 7 months ago.