La Quimera was provided by Reburn for review. Thank you!
It's rare to find myself at a loss for words, or at least a cohesive-enough sentence, to articulate my thoughts on how I feel about a given game. I found myself feeling that way in my first dozen or so hours with Assassin's Creed Shadows, for example, not quite knowing if I was enjoying myself or not, and finding myself at odds with mechanics and design choices, all whilst still having every conceivable urge to play more when the chance arose.
La Quimera, on the other hand, doesn't pose that same dilemma for me. It does everything in its power to coerce me into throwing the Steam Deck aside, or mashing Alt + F4, when I inevitably had to move over to my PC due to glaringly obvious and horrendous technical issues on the little portable that this time couldn't, and contemplating whether this game is egregiously bad or just outright terrible.
"The year is 2064, " says the nameless narrator as you start La Quimerra, developed by Reburn (formerly 4A Games Ukraine of Metro fame). "The collapse of superpowers and various ecological disasters have kick-started the age of the city states, often at war with each other, leaving vast swathes of territory in ruins, ravaged by fighting."
That's the extent of the story you'll be given as you set off on your merry way in this well-trod setting, seeing the usual cast of futuristic, dystopian-lite-inspired tropes as you begrudingly progress. There's little to excite in both the scenario and the setting you find yourself in, bar the occasional glimmer of untapped potential in an element in the environment itself. Again, everything witnessed has all been seen before. It should be noted that there is potential for future updates to expand, story-wise, for this now Early Access title, La Quimera was due to launch as a 'complete' game, so to speak, until the developer rescinded this expectation.
The writing and voice performances throughout show no potential or spark. It's immediately apparent that nothing of substance can be found from the opening character-spoken lines of "Can I mix you another cocktail?" "Maybe some mixed nuts?" "A back rub?". What could almost be seen as a caricature of pseudo-masculine bravado, commonly seen in films depicting war, all sense of irony is lost, considering the delivery.
The following opening lines are equally awful, bordering on infantile, with Mateus, our less-problematic Ant Middleton-lookalike Commander of the Palomo Private Military Company, ineffectively swearing to such a degree he comes across like a 12-year-old who's had one too many sips of their Dad's Shandy at Christmas. The two and a half minutes you spend with Mateus on the Borderlands-like bus opening were enough to confuse at best and disgust at worst, and the quality of, again, both the writing and the performances never changes one iota from that point on.
The moment-to-moment gameplay is a befuddled amalgamation of infrequent genre-defining games over the last few decades. It mixes and matches various stellar elements found in the readily apparent inspirations and instead opts to suck the soul out of every detail with clumsy implementation. Basic gunplay is the bread and butter of La Quimera, with your weapons of choice ranging from a sidearm, shotgun, or rifle. Each falls into two categories - "normal" firearms for the human enemies, and electromagnetic, for shielded/robotic enemies. Your loadout is selected before the mission, meaning the option for any flexibility and change mid-fight to accommodate your present challenge is woefully missing.
The level design throughout feels mildly reminiscent of some of the best third-person cover shooters around, but without an engaging core gameplay to make use of such an environment, it pales in comparison. You either move from point A to point B, usually through a long corridor-like environment, or defend a particular position, such as a rising platform, repeatedly. It's akin to the early days of Destiny, where the variety in public events was severely lacking, except this time it constitutes the entirety of the content on offer.
Various exosuit abilities, like those in Crysis, are also available, but the implementation is a cheap knock-off of the excellence derived in Crytek's 2007 masterpiece. The standard assortment of power-ups is present, like armour enhancements and cloaking, but the previously-mentioned lacklustre level design does little to lend itself to the valuable and enjoyable nature that such an inclusion could have. Improvements for said abilities can be purchased from the currency earned from completing in-game missions, but the differences pre- and post-upgrade are entirely negligible.
La Quimera is not a conventional looker, but it's pushed far beyond the capabilities that the Steam Deck can easily provide. My time throughout, a mere attempt at an hour, portably, was less than ideal, occasionally hitting a 30-fps target but falling into the low 20s more often than not. Specific actions would also further hinder the frame rate, such as throwing a grenade, resulting in a solid 9fps every time.
Slight frame stutters littered said hour, too, severely affecting the accuracy of any otherwise on-target shots. It's simply not recommended to play on the Steam Deck, with all my time from that hour forward having been spent on my PC. Were you to not heed this warning, mind you, you certainly wouldn't be physically able to play for long. The draw on the battery is so severe that you could only get a couple of hours.
There is a specific accessibility tab, but the only option there is Aim Assist. Otherwise, you can change volume settings, language, toggle aim and sprint, and invert the camera.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions or cloud saves, but it does have solid controller support. There are no HDR settings.
La Quimera is a disturbed merger of what would be stellar components from many great games of years gone by, implemented in such a way that mercilessly rips the heart and soul of each element from its very core. Outright terrible writing throughout does nothing to remedy that lack of character, and what could have been seen as hilarious were the performances fully aware, it's severely lacking that self-awareness, only worsening the insipid experience further. Despite the perceived promise of further updates coming, considering the Early Access nature of the title, it's hard to see how it could turn things around to the effect it so desperately needs.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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La Quimera is a disturbed merger of what would be stellar components from many great games of years gone by, implemented in such a way that mercilessly rips the heart and soul of each element from its very core.
