Sign up for the Seekers of Skyveil playtest on Steam to prepare for the closed beta next month.

Seekers of Skyveil feels like a MOBA, but with a strict time limit. You must get out of the game alive to be able to return with better items. It's a shooter without the shooting, a twist on genre that I loved when I played it back in May. You can sign up now for regular playtests by its developer Elodie Games on Steam. Next month, it will enter closed beta.

In the latest closed beta developer update, technical game designer Athena Dai describes Seekers of Skyveil as "like if League’s presentation kind of met Dark and Darker and Tarkov’s gameplay loop." In my preview, I got the same vibe: you choose a character, drop onto a map and try to find loot while fighting (or running away from) enemy groups. If you die, everything you own is lost, but if your character escapes, they can be equipped for the next run.

The closed beta will include three maps, each suited to a different level of skill. Strix, a new owl-archer hero, will also be available. Zuraya is a damage dealer that dashes to the enemy, but you can play a giant tree-man tank. The 'Seeker" designs update fantasy archetypes that you've seen before with more modern looks. For example, the leggings Lily wears with her sneakers.

Sign up for the closed beta on Steam or Twitch to get an invitation and a special in-game emote. The next one begins tomorrow and runs through Friday.

Elodie Games claims that the closed beta will mark the first time all of the game's features will be available at once. The studio says that while the current playtests are focused on one or two features only, it is ready to release all of it. The beta will begin at a later date, but access to the beta will increase as more features are released.

I'm not a MOBA fan, but Seekers of Skyveil is a great game. It's strategic, tense and the matches don't last for hours. That's always a plus. Extraction shooters don't appeal to me, but what about a team-based game that involves cute heroes? I'm in.

You can add Seekers of Skyveil to your Steam wishlist right now.