Remember Brink? Don't feel too badly if your answer is "no." Developed by Splash Damage and published by Bethesda in 2011, it was intended to blend single and multiplayer combat in a futuristic tale about a battle between the Resistance and Security aboard a crumbling floating city called the Ark. We scored it a very positive 76/100 in our review, but overall it tanked pretty badly and was quickly forgotten. 

All of this leads to today's very short and sweet announcement that Brink is now free to play on Steam. Just download it and start shooting—if you enjoy the experience, you can also opt to spring for one of three DLC packs: The Fallout/Spec Ops combo pack or the Doom/Psycho combo pack, which go for $1 each, or the beefier Agents of Change DLC, which includes new maps, abilities, weapon attachments, and outfits, which is currently on sale for a little under $2.

In case you missed it in 2011, here's the Brink launch trailer.

The parkour driven multiplayer shooter, Brink will be free to play through Steam this weekend to celebrate the addition of Clan and Tournament support. That'll let you create and keep track of clans on the Brink site. From there you'll be able to challenge other clans and battle for position on the global clan ladder. The clan hub will also let clan members set up tournaments with custom rulesets, and keep track of each battle online.

Brink never quite got off the ground when it launched back in May, though it showed plenty of promise, with characterful avatars, spectacular settings, varied classes and some destructive gadgets. Find out more in our Brink review. It'll go free at 10AM PST, in about an hour, giving everyone the opportunity to find out how Brink plays six months on. If you like it, Brink will be on sale at 75% off for the duration of the free trial.

UPDATE THE SECOND - It seems all this fuss has been over nothing, with Splash Damage's Paul Wedgewood tweeting:

"We're not working with Disney. We're not building a pop culture IP. We're only using BRINK tech for BRINK updates atm."

UPDATE - Both Eurogamer and Kotaku are speculating this could be a Marvel comics game, based on the sentence "a company widely believed to have given up on the console publishing business", which could well be Disney, who own the Marvel brand. The timing also fits with the '50 years' quote, as the Marvel we know first took off in 1961 with the creation of the Fantastic Four.

Could we see an Avengers game based on Brink? Would it resemble the awesome looking cancelled Avengers FPS from THQ (video above)? We can only hope.

Original post follows.

Hiding in the corner of an Industry Gamers article is a hint at Brink developer Splash Damage's next project. Apparently the studio has "at least one unannounced project for a major entertainment brand", which will be based on the Brink engine. Exactly which brand it is is still a secret, but the article claims it is: "One of the biggest American pop culture brands of the last 50 years."

Speculation at the ready people! What could it be? What 50 year old pop culture license could lend itself to Brink's technology?

A post on the Team Fortress 2 blog from Robin Walker tells us how to get how to get hold of the new TF2 Skyrim, Brink, Rage and Fallout items we mentioned yesterday. If you buy or pre-order the relevant game from Steam during Quakecon, they'll unlock automatically in Team Fortress 2.

Pre-order Skyrim to get the Heavy Nord helmet, pre-order Rage to get the Wingstick for the Engineer and buy Quake IV to get the Quake launcher for the Soldier. Owners of Fallout: New Vegas will get a Pip Boy for the Engineer and owners of Brink will pick up a hood and mask for the Sniper.

The deal ends with Quakecon, so you'll be sure to buy or pre-order the games you want before 10:00 PDT / 18:00 BST on August 8

In the same blog post, Robin Walker also talks about Team Fortress' debt to id Software and Quake in particular. Team Fortress started out as a Quake mod in 1996.

"At the time it only had five playable classes, no maps, and--believe it or not--no hats, writes Robin. "There wasn't even a concept of teams yet."

"That's right, we didn't actually get teams into a game called Team Fortress until a couple of releases after the initial launch. (The next time someone says their game isn't ready to release yet because they're missing a core feature, you can helpfully point this out to them.)"

"When Quake celebrated its 15th birthday this past June 22nd, we realized just how damn many of us at Valve are here because of id software. Some of us were inspired by their games' technical prowess, and others by getting their first taste of game development thanks to Doom and Quake's revolutionary approach to user-generated content."

Quakecon is happening right now in Dallas, Texas. To celebrate, you can play Brink for free this weekend and loads of id's game are on sale on Steam where you can also download and play Team Fortress 2 for free.

Coinciding with both QuakeCon 2011 and the release of Brink's first DLC, Steam has started a free weekend for Splash Damage's parkour shooter. Spotted by Eurogamer, the offer has already started, and continues until Sunday evening, giving players a chance to experience the multiplayer shooter free of charge. The new Agents of Change DLC is included as well, which gives players a broader range of abilities, attachments and costumes, as well as two new maps to try out.

During this period Brink is also on sale for 50% of its regular price, meaning you can get the game (along with the currently free DLC) for just £14.99. The deal comes as part of a celebration for QuakeCon 2011, which began yesterday and has already brought us an impressive new Rage trailer. On top of this, a number of other sales and deals are popping up for Bethesda games over the next couple of days.

Brink: Agents of Change DLC is now available to download for free on Steam. The new pack, which will cost $9.99 after the initial 14-day free period, adds shiny new bits to almost every section of Splash Damage's shooter.

The biggest update included in the free-for-now DLC are the two new maps. Founder's Tower takes place in the epicenter of the beleaguered Ark, and finally lets players inside the actual spire itself. Labs, meanwhile, has players fighting over an old research and development laboratory, which is submerged deep beneath the ocean.

To add to the new areanas, Agents of Change brings five new player abilities to the roster. The operative has been given a UAV, which automatically marks enemies on his radar when enabled. The soldier and engineer, meanwhile, will get napalm grenades and mines respectively.

On the more peaceful side of things, the medic can now invest in a Field Regen unit, which buffs the health regeneration of all nearby teammates. Finally, a Tactical Scanner has been added for all classes, which allows users to see which buffs an enemy currently has active, and therefore better decide a strategy for murdering them. Two new weapon attachments are also included, giving players the ability to inflict more melee damage with the bayonet, or take cover from enemy fire with the weapon shield.

Finally, both teams get a new character outfit. The Resistance get the Sad Punk outfit, while Security get a European policeman outfit called the Limey. The DLC is free for the first two weeks, and after that period will be sold for $9.99.

Thinking about picking up the game while the DLC is going free? Check out our Brink review.

The first slice of Brink DLC is out next Wednesday August 3. If you download it within two weeks, you'll get it free, and it will stay free forever. It will add two new maps, new player abilities and gadgets (including napalm grenades), new weapon attachments (including a bayonet) and some new outfits. It'll also raise the level cap from 20 to 24. You can read the full overview here.

Splash Damage have sent over 11 screens of the new maps. See them below.

Why look, if it isn't that handsome young shooter from Splash Damage, making a stealthy re-appearance on our UK Steam feeds. Where have you been all this time, Brink? We asked around to try and find out why you vanished, but to no avail. Whatever happened, whether it be a publisher spat, or something to do with the change in Steam terms of service that saw Crysis 2 withdrawn, it's all in the past now. Let's get together and go shoot some men in the face, preferably while sliding along the floor like a greasy-arsed badger.

RPS noticed the shooter lounging around on Steam as though it had never been away. It's reappeared just in time, as the new DLC is set to arrive sometime this month. When that hits, the game will go free for two weeks to celebrate. The game's currently 25% off at £22.49.

Steam brings news that a new Brink patch landed last night. The update should clear up many of the lag and performance issues many players have encountered. According to the patch notes, the server browser is now easier to use, ambient occlusion won't kill your frame rate and alt-tabbing won't explode your game. You'll find all the latest updates listed below.

If you're on the fence about splashing our Splash Damage's latest shooter, check out our Brink review. To make more tweaks and improvements to the game, check out Brink Config, a handy little tool that will give you control over mouse and field of view settings. Don't forget that we have two PC Gamer UK servers set up too. Search for "PC Gamer" in the in-game browser, or join us directly on 85.236.100.61. Port: 27115 for Objective and 85.236.100.61. Port: 27215 for Stopwatch matches.

General:

Fixed sound dropping out when playing networked games
Improved graphical performance, especially when using Ambient Occlusion
Fixed voice packs being reset to default when you delete another character
Removed ability to use certain cheat protected commands in challenges
Fixed memory leak/crash when alt-tabbed out

 
User Interface:

Full servers are no longer filtered out of the browser
Added support for entering a range of numbers (i.e. 10-12) in server filters
Reduced font size in the server browser
Exiting Head customization returns to the correct menu
Fixed being unable to bind KP_Enter in the UI
Increased font size of in-game text chat
‘Enter’ now closes text chat prompt if empty
Fixed challenge in menu flashing even after completion

 
Dedicated Servers:

Improved dedicated server CPU performance
Fixed NPC not spawning for escort objectives online on servers using unsupported cvars

 

It took about eight hours before Brink finally clicked for me. I'd levelled up, grabbed caltrops as a special secondary power and disguised myself as an enemy. Free-running, I was leaping from boxes to banisters and jumping off walls, doing so just for the pleasure of the movement, and heading to my objective: stop the Resistance stealing hydraulic fluid.

I was playing on the Security side, Operative class - hacker, disguiser, all-round jerk. Players tend not to spy-check in Brink, so when I arrived at the hydraulic fluid store cupboard, the Resistance didn't take any notice. Tee-hee! They were being pinned back by the rest of my team and focusing their attentions on the amassing forces. At least four of them were crammed in there. Their Engineer had dropped a turret inside. It was a stupid place to put it: it wasn't covering the entrance, but was pointing at his own team.

I reprogrammed the turret, and in doing so dropped my disguise, but surprise goes hand-in-hand with a sodding great turret. I tossed the caltrops to add to their misery, and the four foes in the room were ripped apart, all dropping to the ground and begging to be put down (which is actually an option). Now, to get to the fluid, they had to make it past me, their own reprogrammed turret and my shrapnel.



Breaking the stranglehold on the room let the rest of my team set up around it. We coordinated: the Heavy Soldiers took the sides, a Medic flitted between everyone, Engineers set up more turrets and another Operative set about harassing the Resistance. We held them off, and not even a brutal assault at the final tick of the clock unseated us. We owned that space.

It was my first great moment in Brink, but it took some time for the game to open up enough to let it happen. The first few hours of the mostly online, team-based shooter were filled with a series of scrappy battles. I don't think that was because they've made a complicated shooter; more that the game's disparate parts take a while to get used to when all you want is to go shooty-bang-bang.



Those disparate parts? The same levels for singleplayer, multiplayer and co-op. A generous XP system. Multiple objectives that depend on character class. Different body types that affect the game's free-running movement system. It's more than most games would be willing to throw into a pacey online shooter.

When you create a character, you're given a choice: 'Save the Ark?' or 'Escape the Ark?' Your answer leads to the Security or Resistance sides, respectively. The two teams are fighting over the giant, floating city you live in - the Ark. This leads to asymmetrical objectives. It's an interesting story, slickly told. Nobody is right, and motivations are selfish, but each side has fair points. How you handle that is up to you.



In Brink, the singleplayer is the same as the co-op and multiplayer (there are bots that populate maps clearly made for multiplayer). Even so, the only encouragement for playing offline is in the challenge maps, and only because it's there that you unlock weapons and costumes. The bots are alright, but there's no substitute for online play.

There are no faction-specific classes or weapons, but the character creation doles out various clothing options, and the objectives are different for each team when you hit the servers. I spent most of my time as a Security Operative, but dabbled with the rest of the casts: Soldier, Engineer and Medic, alternating between sides online. Aside from the usual hairdos and bandanas, you also select a body type in the character creator. This has implications for your overall movement. New characters are locked into the Medium body until you level up. You have access to most but not all of the weapons, and have a better range of movement than a Heavy (who gets all the weapons), but not as much as a Light. The idea is that you discover Brink's level-design diversity slowly, locking the 'SMART' free-running system until you've experienced a few games. It's a shame that it takes a few hours of having your wings clipped before you're given full reign, because SMART is Brink's most successful innovation.



You have the normal range of movement you'd expect from an FPS, but holding down the SMART button, or simply jumping or ducking at the right moments, adds mantling, wall-running and sliding. It's wonderfully fulfilling when you're sprinting alongside a group of other players, watching them peel off and run right at walls, leaping up to grasp ledges and then pull up and over. A sprinting group of gun-wielding acrobats, Medics and Engineers buffing everyone as they sprint to the objectives.

It also has a purpose: you use SMART to flank or hunt higher ground. It encourages some incredible moment-to-moment gunplay as you race along, spraying bullets into enemies and fleeing them by sliding through broken doorways. Even purposeless running is a joy. You find yourself steering for things to skip over or slide under, just for the fun of it. And without any fall damage, you can make dramatic entrances, leaping over barriers into enemy-packed warehouses. Sure you'll die, but what a death.

Body type is divorced from the character class limits, so you can be a Light, Medium or Heavy anything. Where the classes can be altered on-the-fly in the game (adjusting to your objective is a key principle), you have to quit to tweak your body type in the character creation screen. You also spend your XP points offline. Brink is generous: just joining a server for a few seconds before the end of a match earned me points for the next level. You have both general and class-specific unlocks.



It wasn't until I'd bagged the caltrops for the Operative that I felt there were some tactics to my approach, rather than just launching at the enemy from the level above, using the element of surprise to bring shock and awe to their dumb, gaping faces. Now I could lace entrances with spiny bits of shrapnel. When you do overwhelm someone, they don't die right away. They lie there in a state of suspension, waiting to resurrect or for a Medic. You can finish them off or surround them with caltrops and injure any Medic that comes to heal them. The game tells you where every bit of XP comes from, so lining a space with caltrops is a good way of knowing when an enemy is approaching.

The slick UI presents a lot of information well (when you select an objective, the camera spins to show you where it is). Yet the levels and objective placements are Brink's biggest letdown. Neither mesh that well with the free-running. They're tight, with more corridors than you'd expect in a game that encourages expressive acrobatics.



The completion countdown timers seemed surprisingly generous. It's because you spend a lot of time in stalemates, trying to force through chokepoints. Some are doorways, but others require the right class to hack a door or repair a crane. If you're not all crammed into a small space, fighting it out for ten minutes, you're on one of the escort missions that pepper Brink with annoying regularity. It's not that it's not possible to have fun, it's just that, for a game built for the joy of sprinting and leaping, the objectives are either slow or made for standoffs. Even the secondary, quickly capped tasks tend to take away from the main ones, making progress sluggish.

Brink is tuned to work under a particular set of circumstances, and these come along a bit too irregularly in public play. As in Enemy Territory, you need a team working together to make things special. I don't have a problem with that, but it's definitely a niche game draped in AAA clothing, where you don't just join up and do your own thing. You need to know the levels, understand that objectives need certain classes (there, Brink fails to be forceful enough) and be willing to muck in when required. I like it, but it's not for everyone.