Spectre Divide is really speedrunning the ‘launching a new FPS game’ gauntlet right now – it was only revealed about five weeks ago, and now it’s fully launched. It’s even gone through the usual trials and tribulations of addressing some fan complaints about initial server wobbles and store prices. Its rapid pace is continuing, as it has just surprisingly dropped its ranked mode earlier than expected.
When I got the chance to play Spectre Divide before it launched, I thought it had a strong (but not guaranteed) chance of success. Its duality mechanic, which lets you control two bodies at once, is one of the most novel I’ve seen in recent FPS games, and core elements like map design and gunplay seemed just as tight as genre rivals like Valorant or Counter-Strike 2. Now you can really get stuck into Spectre Divide and feel a true competitive rush, because ranked play is live right now.
Developer Mountaintop Studios initially said that it would release details about ranked this week and would launch the mode on September 10. However today, September 6, it jumped the gun and surprised players by opening its doors ahead of the weekend.
In many regards, there’s nothing massively surprising about the ranked mode itself – you get matchmade with players of a similar rank, you gain or lose Santai Points (SR) for wins and losses, and climb a rank when you surpass your current rank’s 200 SR threshold. The first seven ranks (Bronze through to Diamond) each contain four tiers within them, while the top rank, Champion, has no threshold and lets you accrue endless amounts of SR, acting as a leaderboard for the very best players in the game.
It’s all pretty standard affair that’s similar to what you get in other competitive shooters, and that’s no bad thing. However, there are a couple of interesting twists.
A small difference is that you’ll get a 50 SR buffer when you climb or drop a rank to prevent you from yo-yoing between ranks too often. This means that if you worked your ass off to get to Gold 1, but you only snuck past the threshold by a few points, you wouldn’t then drop back down immediately if you marginally lost your next game.
The bigger difference is that alongside the traditional, solo ranks, there is a separate leaderboard for team ranks. This uses an identical system, but grades unique three-player teams on their performances. This encourages players to form a trio and play regularly together. So, as well as battling to become the best individual in Spectre Divide, you can also try to become part of the best team as well.
You can read the full blog post detailing Spectre Divide’s ranked mode right here.
As mentioned, Spectre Divide ranked play is live right now in the free-to-play FPS game. However, you will need to have played at least five casual games first before you can access ranked matches.
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