Army of Two: Devil's Cartel is taking dudebro survival seriously with furious Overkill gunplay

Army of Two grows up with bloody results.

With the introduction of Overkill mode, Army of Two: Devil's Cartel will feature more brutal gunplay than dudebro laughs seen previously in the series.

Overkill mode can be triggered after a bar, central on the screen, is fully filled based on the number of co-op actions, kills, distractions, and flanking done over time. The mode lets the user unleash massive amounts of damage in a short period, using unlimited ammo, and the result is the bloody explosion of enemies and the disintegration of cover. This includes pillars and walls, demonstrating the destructive powers of the game's Frostbite 2 engine.

At the start of the short demo, Alpha and Bravo make their way through a broken down and graffiti'd building before being split up in a scenario that forces one to protect the other from afar. As one player falls through the floor to a lower level, their partner is left to cover him from above while protecting himself from enemies that stream in on his floor and hide behind nearby cover. Later the team is split again, with one player covering the other from a helicopter, using a gatling gun to kill enemies, shoot out industrial tanks until they explode to kill groups of enemies, and tear apart the industrial estate around them.

During this demo the helicopter was eventually shot to the ground, leaving my partner to revive me, then we continued on foot, knifing enemies in the Mexican cartel.

"We should put in dialog there when they perform that many stabs, 'what's with all the stabbing, dude?'" laughed one developer from Visceral Games, suggesting that while the game is lighter on the comedic bromance this time, the studio isn't uncomfortable with the lighter aspects of the game that EA Montreal first introduced.

Like the recently released trailer, the demo ended with one of the squadmates nearly falling to his death before the other catches him in a scene that feels peeled out of the cinema. The two follow this with an attempt to headshot an enemy pilot in slow motion, causing his helicopter to spin and crash, with a rotor blade headed toward the duo before the screen cuts to black.

Army of Two: Devil's Cartel is scheduled to release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in March of next year. Earlier this week, Polygon interviewed producer Zach Mumbach over the nature of game's growth from dudebro to maturity.