Blacklight: Tango Down is a dystopian cyberpunk-themed online multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Zombie Studios and published by Ignition Entertainment.
Zombie was planning to make Blacklight a multimedia franchise that would include the video game, a feature film, and a trilogy of comic books, however the company became defunct on January 8, 2015.
The game makes use of its near-future setting by offering HRV (Hyper Reality Visor) that allow players to see an enemy's presence through walls and other obstacles, as well as two types of grenades that counter other players' visors through the use of a blurring effect, similar to a digital smokescreen, along with a type of grenade which emits EMP that forces the enemy's HUD to reboot and reset, resulting in temporary blindness.
Each weapon comes with its own unique futuristic appearance, as well as a wide variety of upgrades and customizations, including variations of magazines, barrels, and camouflages.
[4] Blacklight: Tango Down takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk overpopulated near-future where megacorporations reign supreme and try to manipulate world governments and agencies, and within the confines of a fictional Eastern European city called 'Balik'.
The city is a former Soviet state that has become rundown and dilapidated, with some megacorporate presence, of which retreated after its president assassinated by a terrorist rebel group named The Order, ending its totalitarian military dictatorship that was on a downward spiral due to corporate influence and civil unrest, but subsequently caused The Order to take over the city and intentionally create an epidemic with an obscure and mysterious virus named 'Q-Fever' that induces symptoms similar to rabies, and having the infected be named SIVs (slang for Sentient Insanity Virus).
Meanwhile, a United States agency, named Blacklight, is contracted to wage war against the terrorist group after they've killed the initially deployed Tango squad, sent in to locate a Colonel Klein and his personal Blacklight squad after they went missing in the area, which begins to plunge the world into a downward spiral as megacorporations exploit warfare for profit and manipulative political and economical power.
It was explained that this meant Zombie researched the cutting edge of modern-day technology and applied them to the armor and weapons of the game to give it a real but futuristic atmosphere.
[5][6][7] The most positive review came from Daemon Hatfield of IGN, who described the Xbox 360 version as a "fun and inexpensive way to get your multiplayer fix", and that "when you first jump into the game it may be hard to believe you only paid $15 for it".
[25] The lowest scored review came from James Stephanie Sterling of Destructoid, who criticized the co-op missions, saying that the "Black Ops levels seem thrown in for no good reason", and that the "multiplayer is only marginally better".
[27] In July 2010, Zombie Studios revealed to file hosting site Big Download that the team was already starting development on the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down.