What Fadeout: Underground is
Fadeout: Underground is a third-person online shooter built in the style of late-90s and early-2000s PC games, taking cues from Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Team Fortress. Combat is fast, and the whole thing runs on arena-style shooting rather than slow tactical play. The game has left Early Access and is described as feature complete. It ships with 5 maps, 6 gamemodes plus a bonus mutation mode called Randomizer, 22 weapons, and 8 playable characters.
Playing it as a group
Everything here happens online, and the game supports both cooperative and competitive play. Your group can split across teams in Team Death Match, Team Arena, and Capture the Flag, or go at each other individually in Death Match. Arena and Team Arena are also on the list, along with Conquest. Randomizer shuffles things up when you want a round that plays differently from the usual setup. Pick your characters, load into one of the 5 maps, and start shooting.
Characters and loadouts
Each of the 8 playable characters has its own combat traits, but the design deliberately avoids locking anyone into a fixed role. You are not forced to be the healer or the heavy. On top of that, weapons and gadgets are picked up from the map during a match, so you can adjust your approach mid-round instead of committing to a loadout before spawning. With 22 weapons available, there is a lot of ground to cover between matches.
Before you start
The game is free to play and tagged as casual, competitive, and cartoony in its visual style, with settings that touch on both World War I and modern themes. Character customization is available, so expect some time spent on your look before the first round. Since finding matches depends on other players being online, the developers point to their Discord community as the place to go when you want to line up a game with people.