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Number 06 - Syndicate: American Revolt

The Americans are revolting. It's big trouble, even if your cyborg agents had mastered the first Syndicate game

The phrase ‘expansion pack’ implies a widening of the game world, and with many recent games, that’s exactly what they’ve tended to be, adding new realms, weapons and missions. They are more of the same.

American Revolt, the expansion pack for Syndicate, took a rather different approach. It did of course supply more missions for your team of cool cyborg killers to take on – another 21 – but in terms of toughness, it didn’t so much ‘expand’ the world as pump it full of difficulty-enhancing hormones. American Revolt’s levels bulged with difficulty in the same way as Ben Jonson’s eyes at the end of his drug powered 9.79 seconds 100m.



The original Syndicate had a difficult final mission, set on the island of Atlantis, but American Revolt made that seem like a gentle stroll. As you can see from the video, every move had to be planned: run and gun was simply no longer an option. Enemy agents swarm at your team like ants and the AI isn’t afraid of carpet bombing its own cities just to take you out. American Revolt defined what it was to be a ‘die-hard’ player, because until that was literally true, you weren’t getting past the first of its 21 maddeningly difficult levels.



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