Watch the first trailer for ‘Histera’, a free upcoming shooter with a creative twist

Upcoming free-to-play arena-FPS Histera has just announced its early access release date of May 16.

In Histera, players will duke it out on a battlefield that’s being changed by a process called the Glitch. During the game’s eight versus eight fights, the Glitch can turn sections of the arena into landscapes from different eras. These eras include: futuristic Montorro City, the prehistoric Pliocene Plateau, and war-torn mid-20th century Novgorod. These changes will likely impact how players have to navigate the arena, forcing them to change their tactics on the fly.

This feature sounds reminiscent of Battlefield 4‘s map-changing levelution mechanic, where certain events would cause the landscape to change dramatically as huge buildings were felled and the topography of the maps shifted.

Two modes will be available at the start of the early access period, team deathmatch and territory control. Team deathmatch will be the standard affair we all know and love; two opposing teams will fight to score the most kills. Territory control sounds like Call of Duty‘s domination mode, where teams will have to fight to secure specific parts of the arena.

As well as the Glitch changing the arena, players will be able to customise their characters and weapons with skins, a staple in many modern shooters. These can be purchased via the in-game store, but these changes will be purely cosmetic and have no impact on gameplay stats. There will be a free skin available to people who play Histera in its first two weeks of early access.

There will also be a battle pass, and developer StickyLock Games says it will be providing game updates, both during the early access period and after. You can find the game on Steam and wishlist it now.