Upcoming shooter Reaper Actual throws up some big red flags, but its creators are MMO and FPS heavyweights who can't easily be dismissed

Reaper Actual is a hard sell. It's a plain-looking modern military extraction shooter with Web3 stuff, and I've seen enough of those to know that I'd probably rather be playing Battlefield.

But the man behind Reaper Actual, former Sony Online Entertainment and Daybreak head John Smedley, has snared me before: I spent a whole summer as an EverQuest halfling and did a few tours in the sci-fi MMO wars of the PlanetSide series.

Smedley has again teamed up with PlanetSide 2 creative director...