Ratz Instagib is one of my favorite games and I almost never play it, because almost no one else plays it. After beating up on a bot for five-or-so minutes, I can sometimes find an opponent or two, but it's a struggle. When Ratz launched in 2016, it was littered with CS:GO players who'd use it for practice when they weren't defusing bombs. Where'd you all go?

If you aren't familiar, instagib is an Unreal mutator that now generally refers to FPS games in which everyone starts with a one-hit-kill hitscan weapon. Though I wish some of the most-commonly played levels in Ratz were less spacious and more Unreal-like, and it doesn't replace Unreal Tournament 2K4 instagib for me, it is one of the best instagib games you can buy.

It's a polished sphere of a shooter. You have unlimited ammo and there's a brief cooldown after each shot. Bunny hopping increases your speed Quake-style, and you can 'rocket jump' by firing a pulse out of your gun with the right mouse button. The respawn timer is pretty short. That's all you need to know, really. You'll dance with other players, balancing your own erratic movements against your need to aim, and trying to predict their trajectories. It's beautiful.

What makes Ratz a great package, and not just a rehash of an Unreal mutator, is that just about everything, from your crosshair to the color of opponent players, is customizable, and there's an easy-to-use level builder. 

I don't know why Ratz didn't stick—it is simple, sure, and the players who dominate really dominate, so that's part of it—but maybe we can get a couple months of full servers in to start the year. Ratz is just $2.24 right now on Steam, and you can get four copies for $6.24. The CTF mode is great fun. Just sayin'.

Lino Slahuschek, the sole developer of Ratz Instagib 2.0, was modest when we spoke over Skype yesterday. Speaking in English might have contributed to his short and sweet answers—Slahuschek is from Austria—but I sensed that Ratz is a genuine passion project for him. It began as an experiment.

"I thought I would like to try to make a little shooter in Unity in a week or so, just to try it out, how network and stuff works, but I couldn't stop," said Slahuschek. "And it evolved into the webgame after some months, and then got greenlit [on Steam], and the big idea of releasing on Steam came to me, and I redid the whole game."

I like the game he's made: Ratz is an arena shooter stripped to the essentials, with one-hit kills and one hitscan weapon for everyone. There's no question of where the inspiration came from: when I asked, Slahuschek said impassively, "Yes, Unreal Tournament." He made Ratz to recreate the experience of his favorite UT instagib server. I'm personally a huge fan of UT2K4 instagib, so Ratz immediately appealed to me.

Other people like the game, too—the reviews on Steam are 'very positive'—but the number of concurrent players in Ratz at has dwindled since it launched. I think it's fair to say that maintaining a healthy player population is the biggest problem multiplayer shooters face on PC, and it's not just smaller games like Ratz. Evolve's concurrents are often sub-1000 lately, which is minuscule considering how heavily the game was marketed and how well it was initially received.

So, Ratz is a bit quiet these days, and Slahuschek and his publisher, Rising Star Games, are trying to pull players back in. How do you do that? "Items, I guess," said Slahuschek, chuckling. It's about "giving the players something to work for," added Rising Star Game's Samuel Elphick, who was also on the call.

Taking a cue from Team Fortress 2, the latest update adds cosmetic items which have a random chance of dropping every so many hours of multiplayer play. (Slahuschek told me how many hours that was, but wanted it to be a mystery.) The items are tradeable on the Steam Marketplace. 

The update also makes changes to the Freeztag mode, and adds the chance to draw one of two 'golden tickets,' which win you a signed Mad Catz Tournament Edition R.A.T. mouse.

Further down the line, Slahuschek plans to add more maps and translations before leaving Early Access. I asked him if there was any hope for community-made maps—something I think is near-vital for the long-term success of multiplayer shooters—and he was interested in the idea, but said it wouldn't be easy.

"It would be nice, but the way the maps are done ... this wouldn't be possible with a map maker," said Slahuschek. "So the custom maps by users would look a lot different. If I could figure out a way to make it look good with a map editor, then yes, but they would be a lot different—very different—to the normal maps."

"I really want a map editor now," said Elphick.

"I could do something like Minecraft," Slahuschek continued, considering the idea. "Like you put a lot of boxes around and form the maps. This could be possible but I don't know how it would look."

So, that might not happen soon, if at all, but Slahuschek says Ratz will continue to be supported and updated after it leaves Early Access. "It has a lot of potential, I think, and right now it is successful for me," he said. "It's my first game. I don't know how much bigger it can get—I think a lot."

Rising Star Games contacted me last month and asked if Slahuschek could add a PC Gamer item to the game. Hey, why not? Just type 'pcgamer' (one word) quickly on the main menu screen to unlock it.

Once a web game, now an Early Access game on Steam, Lino Slahuschek's Ratz Instagib is just delightful. It's the game I've played the most so far this year, and I really can't stop. Some are going to hate it, primarily because the inexperienced often struggle against strong opponents at first (as I did and still do), but I love it.

Not only does Ratz bring back great memories of Quake II railgun battles and Unreal Tournament's instagib mode, it has its own merits—primarily the level of customization which creates a very level playing field, and a CTF mode I've heard is great (though I haven't made it into a CTF match just yet, as there aren't quite enough players). Watch a few of my recent rounds above for more on why I'm obsessed with this strange war between rats.