Skip to main content

‘Recoil’ is like playing Call of Duty in your backyard, and we’re into it

Pokémon Go made “augmented reality” a household term, but what if you would rather play soldier than trainer? Skyrocket Toys’ answers the call of duty with Recoil, an outdoor multiplayer AR shooter game that’s kind of like, well, Call of Duty. Using a Wi-Fi hub that broadcasts a 500-foot diameter “playing field,” you and up to 15 friends have lots of space to duck, hide, and attack using guns that attach to your phone for an augmented-reality experience. Set up sniper nests, create barricades, and call down air strikes to defeat your enemies. We had a chance to try it out!

Lock ‘n load

The basic Recoil starter set includes two RK-45 Spitfire guns, a Wi-Fi base station, two belt clips, and and two phone clips. Before you can start playing, you need to download the Recoil game app from the App Store or Google Play Store. The first thing the app will tell you to do is use headphones. Recoil features 3D audio, so you can hear where you are being shot at from. Next, you’ll use the app to set up the base station, and follow the rest of the steps in the app to set up your gun.

During the game your app will display a game screen. On this screen you will see your health bar, how much ammo you have, and a mini map of the play area.

On the battlefield

To start a game, one person hosts a lobby that other players can join, and sets up all the rules. Once everyone has joined, the host taps accept and the game begins.

Like most first-person shooters, you have a certain amount of health, which gets whittled away every time you are shot, or get hit by a grenade or air strike. When it’s gone, you’re dead. You also have a limited amount of ammo. When your clip runs out of bullets, hit the button on the bottom of the gun to reload. To get more bullets, run over the ammo that appears on the mini map of the play area on your phone screen. As in Call of Duty, crates will show up on your mini map containing power ups you can use if you run over to them, like air strikes.

It plays a lot like laser tag, taken to a whole new level by all the augmented-reality perks piled on top. Watch David Cogen from TheUnlockr take to the battlefield in our video review.

David Cogen, a regular contributor here at Digital Trends, runs TheUnlockr.com, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him over at Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.

Nicole Edsall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will this year’s Call of Duty game be on Xbox Game Pass?
Key art for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War season 2.

Activision Blizzard, which is now owned by Microsoft, is gearing up to announce the next Call of Duty game soon and release it later this year. There's been one major point of contention ahead of this year's Call of Duty: Will it be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case.

Historically, Microsoft has added all its first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to Game Pass the day they launched. That applies to big AAA releases like Starfield, as well as more experimental titles like 2022's Pentiment and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, which releases next week. Microsoft's public messaging thus far has teased that 2024's new Call of Duty game, expected to be a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, will come to the Xbox Game Pass. That said, Microsoft has not officially confirmed it, so there have been conflicting reports on this actually being the case.

Read more
Is Helldivers 2 coming to Xbox?
A soldier in silhouette in Helldivers 2.

Helldivers 2 was a massive hit right out of the gate for developer Arrowhead Game Studios, and the game's popularity has only grown since its release in February of this year. Shedding the top-down perspective of the first Helldivers, this cooperative third-person shooter took the world by surprise by being equally hilarious, fun, and challenging. It demands everyone work together to overcome massive hordes of bugs while also dealing with the fact that one player's slipup could derail the whole mission in the most humorous fashion. It's a total riot, and it's not hard to see why.

However, players on Xbox haven't had an opportunity to join in on the fun, as the game is only available on PlayStation 5 and PC. Since so many modern games have timed exclusivity, you may be wondering if that's the case for Helldivers 2, and we've got the answer for you below.
Will Helldivers 2 ever come to Xbox?
It's very unlikely that Helldivers 2 will ever come to Xbox consoles. The primary reason for this is that Helldivers 2 is published by Sony Computer Entertainment, which is a direct competitor to Microsoft. Sony is known for being very protective of IPs and brands, meaning the company tends to keep its published games off of competing consoles.

Read more
Marvel’s Midnight Suns dev confirms romance options were never in the game
Magik after opening a portal for the first time in Marvel's Midnight Suns.

When Marvel's Midnight Suns was released in 2022, some were disappointed that players were unable to romance any of the superhero characters in the game. While players have wondered whether or not that was Marvel or Firaxis' decision, Midnight Suns' Creative Director Jake Solomon has now affirmed to Digital Trends in an interview that he truly never considered romance for the game.

"I’ve seen people say romance was a part of this, but it never was. I never even brought it up to Marvel because I couldn’t find a way," Solomon told Digital Trends as part of a wider discussion about his work on XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns, as well as the formation of Midsummer Studios. "I think the best way for romance to work is for the characters to respond to what the main character wants, right? I think it has to be like that, so it’s hard to mess with these really defined characters. They have these defined sexualities, and it would be hard to fulfill fantasies for all players in terms of what it is they want to do."

Read more