Splash Damage, a developer probably best known for its Enemy Territory line of games, is back with an all new tactical first-person shooter, Brink. Published by Bethesda, we got to see it played live by CEO and Game Director for Splash Damage, Paul Wedgwood.

Brink takes place in a near future world on Ark, a floating city on the sea. At some point in the past, some disaster caused the world's sea levels to drastically rise, until now Ark is the only landmass left - and the refugees are fighting with the established residents for the right to live. The dichotomy between the two forces - named Resistance and Security - is persistent throughout the entire campaign. You can play the game from either side, with a full narrative for both factions basically giving you two complete stories in one package.

In terms of gameplay, you'll be placed in an 8-man squad for either faction and complete missions in order to advance your overall objective. The game is essentially the same whether you're playing alone, with friends cooperatively, or competitively, as the game is seamlessly 8v8 the entire time and any slot can be filled with a human or AI character. As you progress through the game, you'll be able to taken on missions provided by an AI squad leader, effectively choosing how you want to play the game. There are different character classes and abilities as well - we got to see an engineer who could place defensive turrets and boost allies' weapons, and a soldier who comes armed with a grenade launcher.

Several interesting features were demonstrated to the crowd, though we weren't allowed to film or take pictures. First was what Paul called the SMART system - standing for Smooth Movement Around Random Terrain. In a nutshell, it acts much like the free-running climbing and platforming of Assassin's Creed, while in a first-person view. Simply point the cursor where you want to go, and hold the sprint button and move forward, and you'll jump down over railings and climb up ledges and over tables to get where you want to go. The environment has some cues built in as well, so that if you want to evade a sensor, for example, you can point up and climb over it. In a similar way, if you're running along and suddenly point down and use the SMART system you'll automatically go into a dive. It's a rather neat way of combining a lot of complicated actions into a single function, and makes movement around the terrain pleasantly smooth.

From a technical standpoint, the graphics were extremely sharp and everything ran smoothly. The art style is somewhere between a Fallout 3-look (except with colors and sunlight) and a less-stylized Team Fortress 2, particularly in the character design. There were some character customization options as well, with the player carrying over the same character for single player and multiplayer gameplay. One of the more subtle details was how your character's body type affected the gameplay, with larger characters more resistant to damage and smaller ones more effective at moving over the terrain.

Brink is being developed by Splash Damage and published by Bethesda for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. We should get some hands-on time with the game as we get closer to the expected release in Spring 2010.