[REDACTED]

[REDACTED] was provided by KRAFTON, Inc. for review. Thank you!

[REDACTED] combines the top-down twin-stick shooter genre with the increasingly popular rogue-lite genre. Set in the Callisto Protocol universe, you play the role of a prison guard in the Iron Prison, where prisoners and personnel have been turned into crazed zombies and mutants.

[REDACTED] adopts the classic Rogue-Lite playstyle, where you'll need multiple runs through the game to succeed (unless you're very skilled). The game is split across 4 "biomes," and you'll be racing against certain other survivors to make it to the end, occasionally meeting up with them for a fight, which can be made easier by finding dossiers on the characters to discover their weaknesses as you do your runs.

The story of [REDACTED] is pretty much non-existent. The game offers short comic-book strip sequences to convey some story but doesn't explain anything. Essentially, the story is the same as The Callisto Protocol, based in the same prison where that game takes place, where prisoners are being experimented on, and a mutant outbreak has occurred. A story isn't particularly needed for this style of game, though.

This might sound like yet another rogue-lite in a long list of rogue-lites. But [REDACTED] manages to switch it up a little by providing a variety of ways to improve your chances on each run and a decent range of abilities you can unlock. You'll be able to collect different currencies to upgrade your suits and weapons, as well as general character abilities like max health, dash speed, and even the ability to revive during a run.

Combat is smooth and fast-paced. I've never played Hades, but it's probably not far off that play-style, where you must fire a few shots, then quickly dodge out of the way and fire a few more before the next enemy attack comes in. The game can also become quite bullet-hell-y later, with many enemies that shoot projectiles beginning to spawn.

Ultimately, the combat feels very well-balanced and fun to play. It rewards skillful and strategic movement, and you can regularly progress further each time you familiarize yourself with enemy movements and abilities, as well as the abilities you can unlock. You'll have access to a ranged weapon (Pistol, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, etc.) and a melee weapon. However, I used the ranged weapon 99% of the time, only using melee in an emergency if I had to reload and was overwhelmed. You can also do "slide kicks" by dashing and melee attacks and combo moves by stringing together melee attacks.

The game's main premise is to escape the prison, and you'll be doing so alongside other survivors seeking to get to the 1 escape pod remaining before you do. You'll advance from room to room in the prison, with each room you enter presenting you with a different reward at the end, clearly stated by a sign above each door.

Periodically, the other survivors in prison will trigger traps or upgrade the enemies you fight, adding more variety to the game, such as explosive barrels in the room, or all enemies will be shielded for that room. You can also do the same to your opponents, triggering traps to slow them down or damage them. Occasionally, you will encounter a door allowing you to enter a survivor fight against them, with the attacks you've made potentially making the fight easier. These are mini-boss battles and offer a good reward for beating them.

While there's good variety in terms of the upgrades you can get and the enemies you'll face, some parts of the game come across as repetitive. Namely, the world itself is fairly similar. There are 4 different biomes, but all of them are ultimately set in the prison complex, so you'll see a lot of metal everywhere. Aside from the enemies, you'll be facing; they also have little impact on the gameplay itself.

These 4 biomes in the prison complex represent the entire game, and even if you escape the prison by getting to the escape pod, that will just class as your "First Escape" and will unlock more upgrades to help other guards make their escape, you cannot upgrade your weapons until your first escape for example. So, while some rogue-lites may end when you reach the end of the map, you'll probably be at the end of the map of [REDACTED] in about 3-4 hours of playtime, but you're expected to finish the map multiple times.

While traveling through the prison, you'll unlock various abilities and upgrades for this run only, such as making your assault rifle shoot faster or making a lightning bolt follow your dodges/dashes so you can hurt your enemies by dashing through them. But in addition to these, you'll be collecting currencies such as credits, contraband, electronics, and more, which will allow you to purchase further upgrades.

Credits can be spent in Fabricator rooms mid-run, which often give you some health or potentially a decent weapon buff that's valid for that run only. Contraband is what you'll use to permanently upgrade your character, with buffs such as health regen between rooms or just more max health in general. Electronics allow you to alter more about the game world itself, so the "random" generation of the world is perhaps more in your favor. There are also other currencies for permanently unlocking and upgrading weapons and suits.

You'll also face a boss at the end of each biome. You'll probably fail these challenging fights the first couple of times as you learn their patterns, but they're a fun time, and I didn't get frustrated when I lost. It feels like a skill issue if you fail here rather than being the victim of some harsh RNG. Defeating a biome boss for the first time will grant you valuable currency, which can be used to unlock more permanent buffs for your character.

Plus, when you die, you can encounter your corpse again, allowing you to challenge your past (now zombified) self, complete with the upgrades and equipment you had, in a 1v1 battle for some special loot.

In terms of presentation, the visuals on [REDACTED] hold up; they're stylized, and I like how the game looks. Plenty of effects will be firing off in intense situations, so it's probably best they kept the graphics fairly simple. Audio-wise, I found some of the music a bit repetitive, as it tends to play the same or similar music in each area, but it eventually faded into the background while I was busy trying not to die. Sound effects also blended in

Really, [REDACTED] is one of the better Rogue-lites I've played in recent memory. It might not be the longest experience, but I reckon you'll be done with this one in no more than 10 hours or so with the current content. However, it's reasonably priced, and you'll likely get enjoyment from the hours that it lasts.

[REDACTED] - Steam Deck Performance

[REDACTED] is a breeze to play on the Steam Deck. The game defaults to 1280x800 and has great controller support. When entering the controller settings menu in-game, it'll even show a Steam Deck diagram with all the control bindings if you're playing on a Steam Deck.

Recommended Settings - 60 FPS

As the game runs great on the Steam Deck, I'm only offering 1 preset. It's pretty easy-going on battery life and looks great. I set my SteamOS Frame Rate Limit to 60 FPS and then put on a TDP Limit of 8W.

Essentially, you'll max out all the graphics settings, disable the upscaling that's applied by default, put Shadow Quality on High, make sure your Bloom is on, and you should be good to go! Here are the settings I used for reference:

At these settings, the game maintained a pretty constant 60 FPS, with no stutters or drops during actual gameplay, just at level transitions. There's not really much else to say—it's flawless!

The power draw is also pretty low, usually in the 13W-15W range. Temperatures stay cool, around 65C-70C, with no particularly audible fan noise. You should expect around 2.5-3 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck LCD and about 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED.

Accessibility:

All the dialogue in [REDACTED] is subtitled. There is an option to auto-complete Quick Time Events and a "Guard Mode," which seems easier, giving you more defense against attacks and making you stronger each time you die. You can also disable screen shaking and enable a "High Contrast" mode, which will (very intensely) highlight certain objects such as enemies, the player, and interactable objects.

Conclusion:

[REDACTED] is a game the developers should be proud of. The combat is fast-paced and smooth, and the variety of upgrades keeps the gameplay fresh, even though the world is quite repetitive. While I wish the game had more content so it lasted longer, it is a budget title and priced accordingly. I wouldn't say no to some DLC that added a set of biomes to play through, though that might be difficult with the game closely following The Callisto Protocol's world.

As far as how [REDACTED] plays on the Steam Deck, I can't offer any criticisms here. The game is basically flawless. The controls work well, the graphics can be run on their highest settings, and we can keep a modest TDP limit, all of which make [REDACTED] a great game to play on your Steam Deck.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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