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Who here remembers Geneshift? Those with a love of classic, top-down Grand Theft Auto likely do. Released all the way back in 2017, the multiplayer battle royale game changed its name a few years ago to Gene Shift Auto, so that it could wear its inspiration on its sleeve. However, it’s now decided to change guises yet again – and it’s ditching any kind of GTA reference or homage. Gene Shift Auto is now Skillshot City.
When it first dropped as Geneshift, it was one of the weirdest multiplayer games around – a top-down, urban crime game inspired by GTA 2, but with a League of Legends-esque gameplay loop where you would progressively level up characters by looting and killing opponents during a match. It was released with an array of multiplayer modes, but in recent years (and following its name change to Gene Shift City) it’s a free Steam game that plays more like a battle royale. Mechanically, it’s still very similar – you shoot enemies, drive cars around a city, and upgrade your character’s MOBA-like skills throughout the course of a match – but it’s more oriented around being the last player or team standing.
With it being a free multiplayer game, solo dev Ben ‘bencelot’ Johnson has now rebranded it to Skillshot City to “attract the right kind of players,” rather than those thinking they were diving into a classic GTA clone.
“The original name was chosen because Gene Shift Auto sounded a lot like Grand Theft Auto,” he writes in a post announcing the name change. “This game does after all have cops, missions, cars, gangsters and more – and whenever I’d post the game online the most upvoted comment was always, without fail, something like ‘omg, this game looks just like GTA2!’ So I took that as a good sign that GTA was the main selling point and something to base the name on.”
“Instead, we want a name that attracts high-skill PvP fans,” he adds. “Fans who like creating combos, getting flashy kills, mastering their build, and outplaying enemies. This is where the replayability of the game lies – not the cops and missions. This is what keeps you playing 100+ matches as you unlock and discover thousands of new and broken combos.”
Apart from that one time it was flooded by bots hunting for Steam Trading Cards before its permanent F2P switch, the game’s never boasted enormous player counts. However, it’s hoped that the rebrand will bring some new players to Skillshot City as bencelot ramps up towards 1.0 – incredibly, despite being out for eight years, it’s still technically in early access.
So, a game now on its third official title, that’s free-to-play, and that mixes old school GTA with LoL – Skillshot City really is an anomaly. If you want to give it a go, you can add it to your Steam library for free right here.
For more, check out our lists of the best multiplayer games and the best crime games.
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