There’s no announcement on here but this weekend Execution made a brief return, I guess to test out some new mechanics and a couple of new maps (not sure, haven’t been around for a while).
I pretty much gave up on DB when it became apparent SD were never going to go back on the decision to make objectives class-less. For me the game lost it’s soul right there and then and became just another generic shooter. But I have been playing a bit lately, and it is an OK game, and there have even been moments, on some random 6v6 SW server (because there aren’t anything but random servers), where team-work has briefly snuck it’s head over the parapet, despite SD’s best efforts to make it a redundant concept.
So this weekend I fire up DB and notice there’s a bit of blurb about Execution. No mention on the forums here (and I never visit the Nexon site) but apparently there’s a significant change in that there’s only one bomb and it’s given by default to the highest ranking / scoring Engie on the team (which just so happened to be me most of the weekend!).
What’s this? The “objective guy” is back? Team-mates (mostly) sticking together, because there are only 2 places to go? Plenty of Medics, because it’s one life per round and Phoenix can revive himself, so takes on hugely more importance (I’ve certainly been revived more this weekend than in the previous few weeks I’ve been playing again). It’s almost like that old ET feeling, without there even being objectives or re-spawns (though of course with symmetrical spawns the spawn system is fundamentally broken in SW / Obj anyway).
I appreciate Execution is not to most people’s taste around here, but it works amazingly well in DB. It might be a straight CS rip-off but the Merc system and their abilities adds a dimension to the bomb / defuse game mode that other games don’t have. I can see this being a very successful game mode, and if it were played 5-v-5 I can even see it becoming a very successful competitive game mode.
I would say that it can get repetitive after a while, especially as there were only 2 maps, but 15 minutes of meat grinding the first objective in SW / Obj is repetitive, and not in a nice way. I had a lot of fun this weekend, the first time in a long while in DB. Look forward to the next Execution weekend.