Firestarters promises to mix Rollerdome, arena shooters and visual novels into a government-sanctioned bloodsport

This is probably the umpteenth time I’ve said I’m not someone who plays many shooters, but here I am saying it again, because an FPS has rocked up that has clocked my interest. It’s called Firestarters, an arena shooter that’s a bit like Quake, a bit like Rollerdome, and looks like good, bloody fun.

To start with, the setting. Set some time in the future, everyone’s favourite livestreamed event is known as STEEL, a “gladiator bloodsport owned and operated by the nation’s most notorious crime syndicate.” You play as former street delinquent Kera who has to fight for her friends’ freedom and to make up for her own past mistakes in said bloodsport. Classic protag stuff!

Mechanically, the shooting looks to be exactly what you’d expect from an FPS, there’s guns, you point ’em at some enemies, bada bing, bada boom. There are a few guns available by the looks of things, like dual wielding pistols, a shotgunny thing, and also a not-a-gun-but-a-baseball bat, which can deflect bad guy bullets. The real fun comes from the skate park adjacent level design that sees the arenas dotted with ramps, half-pipes, and grind spots for you to enact some Jet Set Radio roller skating shenanigans on, all while trying to take down the androids you’re fighting.

In between matches the story itself is relayed through visual novel style cutscenes, with an appropriately animey look to them. There are two disclaimers I’m thrilled to see in the about section too, one being that no generative AI tools were used to make it (“This game is a specialty product hand-crafted by humans,” it notes), and that “This game does not promote smoking or the use of cigarettes. It’s only cool when anime girls do it.” So true, developer Studio Kerosene.

No release date attached to this one apart from sometime this year, but you can wishlist it on Steam in the meantime.