TerraTech Legion

TerraTech Legion was provided by Mythwright for review. Thank you!

Ever since Vampire Survivors, there have been so many variations of the game, creating the survivors-like genre. I’m almost all of them offer some unique take on the gameplay loop, offering a different experience that scratches the survivors' itch in another way. I feel like I’ve played so many of them, from medical ones where we combine spells to ones that include a sort of Diablo 2-esque RPG system. But TerraTech Legion went in a significantly different direction. It’s still very obviously a survivors game, but the unique mechanic that sets it apart elevates the gameplay to be more engaging and overall way more fun.

The gameplay loop is simple, as it is for all games in this genre. You go around a map, kill enemies, level up, and get more powerful with new in-run upgrades. As time goes on, more enemies will come out with stronger variations, and you’ll have to pick and choose your upgrades wisely to keep surviving. As you play, you will also get currency to get permanent upgrades, so each time you go back in, you will have a better edge. It’s a proven strategy for an effective, addictive experience, and it works well in TerraTech Legion, too.

However, it’s the upgrade system that truly makes this game shine. TerraTech is a series of games that are all about modular building vehicles in real time. The first game is all about exploring an open-world sandbox, crafting, and building your own vehicle. So, when I first saw this game, I was wondering how they would translate that into a survival setting. And honestly, the way they implemented it feels meaningful.

Whenever we level up or find them around the maps, we will get crates that we can use to upgrade our vehicle that we roam the map in. We will get three options to choose from, and then we have to attach the new parts to our vehicle. We have completely free rain on how we want to build it out, as we can get building blocks, utilities, and multiple different weapons that we can attach wherever. While we do have a base vehicle, we can essentially completely modify and change how it looks and feels, as well as which directions the weapons shoot from.

The possibilities and creativity here are endless, yet I never felt like it was a waste. Every decision I made affected how I would use my vehicle. Would I pump out a bunch of guns shooting forward? Would I equip my vehicle with extra armor and spikes to ram into them? Would I pump up my boost gauge so I can travel and slam into foes for extra damage? That’s the beauty of the system. Not only do we choose what weapons and defensive capabilities we want, but we also choose how it’s going to be used.

Playing around with the system was one of the highlights of each run and made going through it so much more enjoyable. I don’t think I’ve ever played a survivors game like this, and apart from the general gameplay loop, it was hard to draw similarities to other similar games. With how many games are released with the style of gameplay, that’s a huge compliment.

Apart from that, the worlds included are varied and have different hazards, but they all generally play out the same. I do appreciate that there is a time limit for each mission before the main boss appears, so there is an end goal instead of just endlessly playing (though there is an endless mode we can unlock). And there's an ample amount of opportunities to modify your vehicle, with a good chunk of crates being available to snag.

Each world in TerraTech Legion has different levels, which increase its difficulty. We can unlock these by completing objectives on each map and upgrading one of our four operators. The four operators all have their own permanent skill trees in abilities that make them focus on different things. Some of the notes on the skill trees aren’t the most helpful, and I do wish we had a permanent upgrade system that affected everybody. The currency we get to upgrade only applies to the operator we use, so if you get a new one, you essentially have to start from no currency and upgrade it from nothing. On one hand, it is replaceable, but on the other hand, it felt like I was starting over from the beginning after I had worked so hard to upgrade and get stronger.

TerraTech Legion - Steam Deck Performance

TerraTech Legion is a joy to play on the Steam Deck, though we can make it better with some changes to its quality settings. The game defaults to the lowest settings, which isn't awful, but I was curious why they chose the settings they did. Not only can this game look significantly better and still stick to 60 FPS, but it also has support for Vulkan drivers. For Linux devices, including the Steam Deck, this is preferred over DirectX 12 and will usually result in better performance, so I am surprised this isn't enabled by default on the Deck.

However, for this, I would recommend actually moving all of the quality settings to Medium and Shadows on High, as well as moving the Upscale Screen Percentage to 75%. This makes the game look gorgeous, and from my experience, it has stuck to 60 FPS. It does drain a little more than usual, and there may be some scenarios where there are too many enemies and explosions that start to hurt performance, but I beat multiple worlds and levels with these settings and didn't see any drops.

Conclusion

TerraTech Legion is easily one of the most unique survivors games I have played. It pushes the upgrade system to something that feels customizable and impactful with each block you place to build your own vehicle. It was so enjoyable to start each run and build my vehicle up to the kind of powerhouse I wanted it to be. The permanent upgrade system leaves a little to be desired, and doesn’t encourage trying to operators as much as I would’ve liked, but I didn’t mind just using one because each run felt like a new way to experiment.

The game feels perfect on the Steam Deck as well, with settings we can push up to make it look beautiful on the smaller screen. It's a great game to play, especially on the go.

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

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