Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Triad Wars Livestream Showcases Raids

The guys at United Front Games graced us with another stream of Triad Wars gameplay on Thursday, showing off the action-packed heart of the game: raiding your rival's turf.

To prep for a raid, you'll probably want to do a few operations first, taking out rivals' illicit businesses throughout the city. In addition to small amounts of loot, they'll net you more time in the raid proper. Once you've crashed the gate, you'll fight through waves of enemies using all sorts of crazy gunplay and martial arts moves -- my favorite was when he pressed the one guy's face to a barbecue grill -- and can stop at any time and make off with your ill-gotten goods. Or, you can go all the way to the top, taking out the enforcer in a swanky penthouse for maximum rewards.

Whoever comes out on top earns Face, the currency of coolness in Hong Kong, while the loser loses Face. There's a cooldown on how often a location can be raided, so you can't "farm" your rivals (or be excessively farmed when you're offline). The UFG team also showed off an escort mission, delivering goods while under fire from enemy gang members and the police.

One thing that I was always a bit uncertain on but became clearer during the stream was that gameplay is wholly asynchronous -- you'll raid other players' pre-set NPC-run operations while never confronting them directly, whether on their turf or in the open world. You can, of course, set up your defenses to increase your chances of survival, but it's a little bit of a downer to know that Triad Wars seems to only barely meet the definition of "multiplayer." Co-op gameplay is something they say they're working on, but for the moment the game seems very single-player-ish.

While it's still available on Twitch, you can check out the whole stream here and laugh out loud (like I did) at some of the crazy moves. My favorite was the epic wipeout at 35:40.