Ah, free-to-play games… a class of titles that are always a bit difficult to review. On the one hand you have people that argue being harsh to games folks can get without paying anything is somehow wrong, and on the other you have people saying they’re universally crappy. For me, I absolutely land somewhere in the middle, as I consider my time more precious than a few bucks to begin with, so wasting it is more aggravating than my money. That said, as some enduring titles like Fortnite have proven, even if they may have their own built-in annoyances there’s often at least some room for having a bit of fun. 

Crossout Legends actually serves as a fair example of a title that, while imperfect, still makes a decent case for itself if you’re inclined to online multiplayer battles that are typically on the shorter side, enjoying some excitement in bursts. At the end of the day this is a team-based battle game where you’ll generally be working to control territory of some kind, but more often than not matches will tend to be settled by one team blowing the other away. In order to play your part you’ll need to first choose which type of rig you plan to control. If you’re big on speed and don’t mind your firepower being more limited you can go with a wheeled vehicle. If you’d like to do big damage with a powerful gun, but a slow reload, you can opt for what are essentially tanks. Finally, if you’re looking for pretty good maneuverability and decent weapons you’ll want to go with a mech. Don’t worry, over time you’ll be able to customize your ride of choice, at least opening a small door to some individuality.

That does lead into a problem I had though, and that’s the entire sequence of screens and interfaces for customizing your ride. While accessory-level changes, or modifications to colors, aren’t terribly hard to figure out, setting up your core equipment is a bit of a mess. There is an option to sort of auto-build something when you provide it with some primary details, but further customization has issues. The first is that the interface is simply quite cumbersome, and working with a combination of the D-Pad, joystick, and various buttons is not generally intuitive or easy. Worse, understanding your limitations and how to get as much on your rig as possible is also a bit of a chore. 

The thing is, once you get on the battlefield (which can sometimes take a few minutes unfortunately), there’s at least some fun to be had blowing people on the other team up. While it doesn’t always provide you with immediate results, being able to target specific parts like the wheels or on-board weapons to disable and even knock them off, can absolutely be fun. That said, while these skirmishes generally being only a handful of minutes make it easy to pick up and play for a few rounds, that also can make it easier to burn out on the overall experience since it doesn’t take all that long to begin feeling very familiar. Throw in the fact that between matches, and while just moving around, you’ll be inundated with attempts to get you to shell out your hard-earned money just to get some aesthetic goodies. It being a free game, I get it, and if you don’t mind wading through some of it periodically you can have some fun, just whether you’ll want to invest more time in it in the long-term would be a fair question, since there’s only so much variety here to be found.