As you play you gain experience and eventually rank up, and each rank unlocks additional weapons, weapon components, camouflage patterns, and trinkets. Base weapons can be further modified by swapping out components in the form of barrels, magazines, scopes, and stocks which all have an effect on your characters mobility and firepower. Trinkets are small toys that hang off of a hook on your gun that are essentially charms, and while they can add additional boost to your character they can also detract from other areas such as adding protection at the expense of firepower. These upgrades let you tailor your load outs to how you want to play, and work both cosmetically as well as functionally.

That’s not to say that the game is flawless, as it certainly has a couple noteworthy hiccups. Though it seems to at least try to balance teams based on participant rank it is by no means the most reliable example of how to do so, and it is certainly possible to end up with imbalanced teams. Higher ranked players may not have any more skill necessarily but certainly have more time played as well as more unlocks to increase their effectiveness. Additionally, while mission-based cooperative mode allows for up to four players to fight off a level filled with AI enemies the combination of uneven pacing and brain-dead AI make it more an easy way to gain experience more so than it being a main draw to the game.

That all being said though, Blacklight: Tango Down is a quite solid shooter that combines entertaining gameplay with some unique features and throws it all together into a commendable multiplayer package. Ranking up and unlocking weapon parts is more addictive that it rightfully should be, and the combination of the realistic and futuristic aspects of the combat makes you feel vulnerable in an enjoyable way, and makes the play of the game feel much more tactical than many other games of the same type. It has a few flaws here and there, but ultimately it is a surprisingly large amount of fun stuffed into a budget-priced package.