Insomniac reinvents the horde mode with "Echelon"

Insomniac boss Ted Price talks about Fuse's new co-op horde style Echelon mode. Going into details of each of the six modes in it he also points out the mode's shift away from classic defense to a offensive style of play.

Talking to Official Xbox Magazine UK about the co-op mode, Price starts off with what's different from usual horde gameplay. "It's wave based in that you do fight waves of enemies but we switch out the rules on you all the time. And it's much more of an offensive mode than typical traditional wave modes. It's more of an offensive game mode than most other wave-based game modes in that some of the sub modes, most of the sub modes, in this game mode are offensive, you are actually going after certain things versus just trying to defend yourself."

Going into the six modes on offer, Price details what we'll see. "Carnage you're trying to kill everybody, the enemies will show up, work together, but you've got to take them all down with your team. The second, or an other mode, is High-Value Target, where you have a mini-boss who appears in the game and the longer he stays alive the more enemies he brings into the battle with him, so you've got to try to take him down pretty quickly, and they're super aggressive. What's fun is that the person who actually scores the killing blow gets a big bonus in terms of fuse credits."

There is still the defensive play available for those after it. "There is Hot Zone, which is probably one of our only defensive modes where you are defending an area with a fuse canister in the middle of it, a fuse cell. The fuse cell will recharge your xenotech if you stay near it, but the enemies will try to destroy it, so you've got to keep it going until the time runs out."

"There is Prime Threat which is our boss round - Prime Threat takes one of the larger bosses in the game and you've just got to survive, try to take him down. There's Critical Drop where throughout the maps we will drop big boxes full of supplies and cash and weapons, and the enemies and you are racing to get them, and the enemies will destroy them if they get there first but if you get there you get some pretty cool stuff. You get weapons you normally can't pick up."

The mode sees players teamed up but also competing against each other for rewards in the form of Fuse Points and Fuse Credits, exclusive to Echelon mode. These credits appear as giant, arcade-style coins, money bags, and gold bars and the first to get to it gets the reward.

Echelon is out in March 2013.