If you, like me, see this image and are immediately transfered back to the years 2010 and 2011, before the Dominion of the Battlepass, preceeding even the reign of nightly Forts, we are of a kind. I didn’t really feel like I was waiting for another Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Battlefield 3, but by the gods did I miss it. Battlebit is an amazing return to form for the genre, and it was pulled off by a team of four. What are the triple A studios doing with their budgets and their brands? It should logically follow that the more money thrown at a problem, the easier it is to solve, no? The team working on this Battlefield: Roblox Edition has proven that this is not the case.

If you’re looking for a rating, this is the wrong place to find one. Battlebit is fun, and its the first time i’ve felt complled to describe a game in this way in recent memory. Its robust list of features are what I have wanted from a first person multiplayer shooter since the days when Battlefield competed with Call of Duty for the crown of ‘Best FPS.’ I feel like it should be illegal that the game sells for a fraction of the cost of a modern game.

If you’ve been longing for that golden-age-of-gaming feel, wrapped up in sweet modern simplicity and sold for the price of a couple of lattes, then Battlebit is the game you didn’t know you needed but now will wonder how you lived without.

Stripped down to the bones and then artfully reconstructed by a skeleton crew of four, Battlebit dusts off the gems of Battlefield’s glory days and delivers them to a parched landscape like water on a hot summer day. For those of us who’ve been yearning for a return to form – to the days when games were about gameplay, and not about how much your wallet could cough up for a new skin or weapon – this game feels like a much-needed inhale of fresh air.

These four developers haven’t just revisited the past, they’ve redefined it. They’ve taken that ol’ school, squad-based combat we loved in Battlefield 2 and 3 and added their own spicy twist. With sprawling maps, a respectible array of vehicles , a group of classes that’ll fit any play style, and to steal a word from DICE’s marketing department, ‘Leveloution’ like I dreamed of as a child– it’s all here and then some. Battlebit serves it all up with a side of slick performance and a refreshingly light $15 price tag.

If you’re searching for shiny graphics or convoluted progression systems, keep searching. Battlebit doesn’t play those games. This is raw, undiluted fun. This is a game that remembers it’s a game. It’s got strategy, camaraderie, and a sense of exploration that will have you reaching for ‘just one more round’ more often than you’d care to admit.

To sum it up, Battlebit is the nostalgic shot in the arm the first-person shooter genre has been crying out for. It’s a bold middle finger to the bigwigs who’ve lost touch with what makes gaming great. And if this is what a team of four can pull off, I can’t wait to see how they’ll continue to shake up the gaming world. So grab a seat, and prepare to be transported back to a simpler time. I’m optimistic, and for that reason, I choose to believe that Battlebit is not some flash in the pan to be forgotten in a year, but instead a flashpoint. One which will hopefully shake things up in the modern gaming space.