Snow War is being developed by indie studio Gnomecraft as a spiritual successor to the Snow-War Half-Life mod whose v1.0 public beta kicked off in 2001 before its v2.0 update launched in 2004. It saw Half Life’s heroes and villains slugging it out in the snow, where you’d have power-ups you could wear, like a big bin for protection, or pogo-boots that let you bounce around the map, making you a harder target to hit. Snow War is set in the 80’s where an arctic apocalypse has blanketed neon cities and lumber yards with piles of snow. Naturally, there’s only one thing for it: a big honkin’ snowball fight. And it largely borrows from its predecessor, with wearable power-ups, game modes like Capture The Flag, Team Deathmatch, and Free-For-All, all bundled up with that Valve feel running through its crisp animations and visuals. Despite being powered by Unreal Engine, it’s clear that the devs are staying true to the original experience. Going by the trailer, I like the look of the two maps! They seem to strike a nice balance between tight-knit corridors and plenty of open space for frantic free-for-alls. And of course, it’s nice to see an FPS that isn’t all about guns and violence, even if the guy who gets pelted at the 32 second mark may need extensive back surgery after that sneak-attack. The game doesn’t have a release date just yet, but it’s expected to release this fall. You can keep track of it over on Steam or on its website.
