My friends, it’s my delight to inform you that we have entered the era of magical gun wizards. At least, that’s my takeaway from the trailer for Veil, a just-announced, four-player co-op shooter based around squads of tactical warlocks as they try to keep demons from spilling over into our world. It got its first gameplay trailer today, which you can see above.

Billed as a “mission-based shooter, where you perform work for various power-hungry groups locked in century-long struggle,” Veil looks to me like someone took a Rainbow Six game and gave everyone in it Eldritch Blast. “You’re not just a grunt with a gun,” continues the description, “to even the odds against numerous and powerful enemies, you make demonic pacts that grant you supernatural powers.”

It looks and sounds interesting, and I’m kind of into the weird admixture of Ars Goetia-style runes and magicks (the K is important) with tacticool operator nonsense. Plus, my understanding from centuries of folklore and literature is that making demonic pacts always pays off, so it’s no wonder Veil’s “Occult Operator Teams” have gone all-in on inking deals with the devil. 

Between the game’s description and its trailer, it looks like there are plenty of powers on offer to mix things up while you breach, clear, and banish. Over on Steam, the game boasts that you can “Teleport, become invisible, fire demonic bullets that increase damage output, see through walls or detect hidden enemies, heal yourself or your allies,” and the trailer showcases a magical operator zipping around the map Dishonored-style before getting all his most delicate face-parts eaten by some kind of long-limbed horror from beyond.

So, sounds good. Almost like a mash-up of Dishonored and a SWAT game, both of which I’m pretty into. We’ll learn more as development progresses, but for now, you can keep tabs on Veil over on Steam, Twitter, Discord, and its official website.