[REDACTED]s Rival Race is the Perfect Jolt of Roguelike Urgency

At first glance, [REDACTED] doesn’t necessarily do anything out of the ordinary or outlandish when it comes to how its isometric roguelike gameplay is structured. There are different combinations of weapons, gear, and stats to consider in [REDACTED], for instance, as well as different resources and currencies players can spend toward permanent upgrades and buffs for subsequent runs.

Perishing is less of a punishment and more of a means of natural progression, and new interactions and opportunities become available as players respawn and carry on into a new attempt to flee from Black Iron Prison in the last escape pod. That said, it’s in this attempt to flee that [REDACTED] becomes remarkably interesting.

[REDACTED]’s Runs Quickly Become a Race Against Colorful Boss Rivals

It would be one thing if [REDACTED] tasked players with simply trekking through The Callisto Protocol’s Black Iron Prison with the herculean task of carving through countless biophages and automaton sentries. Instead, what’s maybe most unique about [REDACTED]’s spin on the trendy roguelikes genre is how players are constantly racing to reach the escape pod before other characters can reach it themselves.

[REDACTED] features several bosses that players must slay before they can traverse to a new biome—as well as their own hostile corpse—but intermittently they also have a great chance of running into ‘rivals.’ Rivals are [REDACTED]’s chief source of dialogue and provide comic relief alongside grueling boss challenges. If this was all they contributed to [REDACTED], though, it wouldn’t be all that impressive or novel; rather, players track, pursue, and actively sabotage rivals while they themselves are hurriedly trying to rush through rooms and gain a lead.

Once rivals are introduced, a bar as long as players’ screens will appear at the bottom of the HUD where they can monitor how far along rivals are in relation to them, not to mention how close they are to a biome boss. This alone makes clearing rooms faster a massive incentive as players doggedly making their way through rooms will notice rivals taking swift leads and far out-pacing them, which can be devastating early on.

[REDACTED]’s Sabotage Mechanic is a Rush of Adrenaline

[REDACTED]’s rivals make comments when they’ve passed each other, and the quicker that players clear a room the more they’ll charge a meter allowing them to press one of multiple input combinations to impede or disrupt a rival of their choosing. Inputting these combinations brings a menu up on the side of the screen but does not pause the game, meaning that players must wait for an opportune moment where they won’t be interrupted by a biophage’s attacks nor lose focus anyhow and input a combination incorrectly.

Actually catching up to a rival and going toe-to-toe with them before exit doors activate is less intimidating than the ordinary moment-to-moment pursuit as a result, and with three random rivals racing players in each run there is quite a lot to consider regarding whom players might want to catch up to first and potentially tackle, much less which rivals they’d be fine with securing an early lead to be able to surpass or circumvent in later biomes. There are a ton of mind games [REDACTED] presents with its race premise and how players engage with its sabotage mechanic, and that’s all before players even make a successful escape from Black Iron Prison for the first time.

Roguelike

Dungeon Crawler

Action

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Shooter

Released

October 31, 2024

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ESRB

Teen // Blood, Language, Violence

Steam Deck Compatibility

Verified

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Number of Players

1

PC Release Date

October 31, 2024

PS5 Release Date

October 28, 2024

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Xbox Series X|S Release Date

October 31, 2024

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