Cars With Guns: It’s About Time from Null Reference Games recently entered into Early Access on Steam. The game arrived just in time for Valve’s Winter Sale taking place across the Steam store. The game launched not too long ago with a 15% discount, making it only $8.49 instead of $9.99 throughout the holiday sale.

The game is a throwback to classics like Vigilante 8 and Twisted Metal. It’s not quite on par to something like Gas Guzzlers, which is more of a combat racer. Instead, you won’t be racing at all in Cars With Guns, you’ll be engaged in arena combat with up to three other players.

According to the developers, the game is centered around four-player deathmatch. During the Early Access run there are currently four arenas to battle in, 12 unlockable weapons, and 15 vehicles that include nine cars, three trucks, one sports and a bus.

You can see how some of the vehicles handle and what the gameplay is like with the trailer below.

The concept of the game is pretty simple: you grab a car, deck it out in your garage with weapons, and then you head into the arena and do battle.

As showcased in the video, the game has over-the-top physics, even more over-the-top explosion effects and destruction, and lots of carnage to boot.

The development team only consists of two people, which explains why the Early Access version is so rough around the edges.

The physics are kind of floaty and there’s a lot of pop-in and instant fade-out of the special effects, especially after a big collision or explosive hit.

On the upside, though, the vehicular damage looks good – as far as the dents, body damage, and particle effects are concerned. Metal crunches, doors bend, bumpers flex, and pieces go flying. With better refinement and optimization it could be a really solid feature.

Additionally, the game features pick-ups and power-ups for shields, repairs, zero-G, and boost effects; there are also plans to add a livery editor.

A stunt combo system is present, so the more outrageous moves you pull off during a jump, the more you’re rewarded, and the game is designed to take advantage of game controllers.

The only drawback is that it’s limited to local four-player play instead of having online multiplayer implemented into it.

Maybe down the road they can be convinced to implement multiplayer if the game sells well enough? There’s definitely plenty of time for feedback given that they don’t expect the finished version to arrive until August 1st, 2019.

If you’re interested in a local multiplayer car combat arena game, you can learn more about Cars With Guns by visiting the Steam store page.