CLAWPUNK was provided by Megabit Publishing for review. Thank you!
Clawpunk is one of those games that might be just what you need after a hard day at work. You have little energy to do much but vegetate in front of a TV, and then you remember video games exist. You decide to boot up Clawpunk and spend the night ripping through destructible terrain and slaughtering enemies as a collection of mysterious cat mercenaries.
As I discussed at length during my review of Big Hop, I’m not much of a platformer guy. Clearly, our editor took pity on me for my next game to review, which is why I got to play the madhouse that is Clawpunk. It launched last year in mid-November, and after spending the last two weeks with the game, I’m amazed it hasn’t received more attention. I love hidden gems, and Clawpunk deserves so many more eyes on it. Not only is it a solid roguelike with tons of charm and depth, but it’s a great experience on the Steam Deck.
The first thing that drew me to Clawpunk is how much it lets you vibe. From the moment I booted up the game, this title’s music and aesthetics sucked me right in. The loading cutscene sets the narrative of what to expect. Feral City has fallen under the control of several nasty gangs, and it’s up to you to reclaim the city with a crack team of fearsome kitties through an action-packed series of platforming challenges.
There is a solid tutorial to learn the ropes that’s separate from the main game, and I always appreciate games that have a separate game mode that you can dive into whenever you need a refresher. You’re going to need all the help you can get with Clawpunk because this is a brutal game that’s deeper than it looks.
At its core, Clawpunk is a fast-paced hack-and-slash platformer with five worlds with multiple stages in each to navigate. What’s cool is that apart from the last stage, which is only unlockable by completing all previous areas, you can run through the others however you like, and can travel to all four from the beginning. Players start with Dash, an incredibly fast but weak cat with a katana, and unlock perks along with the other eight cats of doom from there. Environments are all destructible, and the goal of each stage is the same: to reach the safehouse at the bottom. It’s an interesting approach to the mission design because while it’s a simple plan in theory, the game throws plenty of curveballs and tools at you to achieve that.
Mortality is rampant, with common enemies and your own army of feline mercenaries possessing squishy bodies. There’s always a ton of threats to navigate from diverse enemies to environmental traps such as dynamite and pools of acid, and you will die often. Clawpunk’s core gameplay is probably its biggest strength, blending great difficulty with an interactivity that really impressed me. The game is extremely punishing, but once you’ve unlocked a couple of extra mercs, things do ease up a little. Your run only ends in defeat when all your unlocked roster dies.
The goal of reaching the safehouse is always there, but the game rewards you for killing as many enemies as possible, rating your competition with a tier system depending on the destruction caused, how much damage you took, and so on. What I also found interesting is the Chaos mechanic. Destroying things and killing enemies all feed this meter, and if you don’t fill it before escaping the stage, your notoriety will increase. It will also increase if you get detected by security cameras.
When this meter goes up enough, the gangs in control of Feral City will send elite troops after you. These things hit even harder than the grunts, so you need to be very careful between balancing chaos and rushing to the finish line. Completing stages is important, but you are sending a message to the gangs as well. It’s an intriguing way of doing things.
The levels are short and sweet in most cases, but despite that, there are plenty of things to do. Collecting purple coins allows you to upgrade stats and unlock new characters in the Airfield, which serves as the hub between runs. There are some things to do as new characters turn up, and you get to practice the platforming between missions, which is nice. Collectible cards can also be added to characters to unlock a ton of modifiers, which only improves the flexibility.
Between the gorgeous visuals, destruction physics, and fast, brutal gameplay, there’s plenty to like with Clawpunk. I have a couple of gripes with figuring out which character is who. With so much happening on screen, it can be hard working out where my feline avatar actually is. More than once, I lost track of where I was and got killed in the confusion, but this is more of an issue with the smaller characters and isn’t a dealbreaker. The difficulty curve is also pretty steep, more than in other games in the genre, which might cause some players to struggle with it. Despite these minor drawbacks, Clawpunk deserves far more attention than it currently has.
Clawpunk is rated Steam Deck Verified by Valve, and it carries an Unknown rating on ProtonDB. The latter is mainly due to the relative lack of attention the game has received in the endless ocean that is the indie game market, but Clawpunk is an excellent experience on the Steam Deck.
That’s just as well, because there isn’t any room to mess around with settings-wise. No graphical options exist, and there’s no way to really change keybindings either. Fortunately, the controller support is out of the box, and I’ve had no complaints about performance. Font size can be a little tricky to read due to the lack of UI scaling, but this isn’t a game where you have to read that much.
With our options limited, there is only one preset we can really use. With a native resolution, 60hz refresh rate, and default TDP, Clawpunk holds a steady 60FPS even in the heaviest action sequences. The controls are fluid despite having no way to adjust them as well.
With the full TDP running, Clawpunk still does decently with battery life. Despite the low-end visuals, the full destructive terrain and screen action can make things pretty hectic. I saw an average power draw of 12 watts during these scenes, which will provide around 4 hours on the Steam Deck OLED during combat.
I tried tinkering with the TDP to see if I could improve the battery life, and a 4-watt TDP kept the framerate around 30FPS with a 7-watt average power draw. While this is a big improvement in overall battery life, I still recommend sticking with the native TDP to ensure the smoothest gameplay possible.
Clawpunk is available in English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, although only English has full audio.
Clawpunk’s biggest problem lies with the lack of accessibility options, unfortunately. There is a lack of colorblind options, no way to change keybinds or button prompts, and a lack of graphical settings that can be adjusted right now. Players can choose to disable data collection, adjust damage tolerance, and change sound volume, but that’s about it.
Sometimes, even good games fall through the cracks due to the sheer number of titles that exist, especially in the indie gaming scene. After playing Clawpunk, I hope more people discover this. It might not do anything wholly new or unique, but it does a great job with almost everything that matters. The addictive gameplay and amount of content kept me invested, and Clawpunk has great character.
The steep difficulty curve and lack of accessibility options might put some players off, but this is a great complement to the Steam Deck library.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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CLAWPUNK really deserves more attention, and its addictive, brutal gameplay and great charm should suit anyone interested in a fast-paced platformer. It is also a great experience on the Steam Deck.
