Deadzone: Rogue Preview

 I got the chance to check out Deadzone: Rogue, a “fast-paced roguelite FPS” developed and published by Prophecy Games. You might know them for (as of writing) the mixed-to-very-negative TRIBES 3: Rivals (which used AI) and the upcoming free-to-play sports shooter Ultra Strikers. That’s… that’s not exactly a good track record (at least according to Steam), but I’m willing to give it a try.

The game starts with you waking up on a large, empty spaceship with a gun in your hands and no memories. With nothing else to do, you head into a nearby elevator and descend down into the depths, where you'll encounter nothing but the bodies of the crew and dangerous enemies who will stop at nothing to kill you. You’ll revive if you do, but now’s the million-dollar question: who are you and what happened on this ship?

So, the basic gameplay loop is going into a room, killing and looting everything you see, then grabbing the reward and moving to the next area. Repeat that X times (depending on how many rooms there are) before facing the final area boss. Kill that and you’ll win the run. Simple, right?

You start out with the aforementioned pistol, a knife, and an impact grenade, but throughout your attempt, you’ll obtain a proper primary weapon and armour from enemy drops. Each piece of equipment has bonus effects, and the better the quality (or rarity), the more bonuses they grant, like elemental damage, cooldown reduction, and refunding bullets. If you like the equipment you already have, you can upgrade them and increase their quality by spending the scrap you pick up from dead foes, but there’s only so many times this can be done before you exhaust their upgrades. Eventually, you’ll have to switch it out with something with more potential, leading to some interesting decisions. For example, a minigun is nice, but since it came up early, it will never go past a Rare quality. You might want to exchange it for an SMG that doesn’t quite pack the same punch, but can become Legendary.

Clearing a room will reward you with perks (powerful, gameplay-changing buffs) or items (smaller passive bonuses) to make your character a little more lethal. In my first winning run, I chose a perk that increased my magazine by 200% and an item that increased it by another 50%. With some guns, there were not enough digits on their ammo counter to properly show how much I had per mag. It was great and really funny.

What surprised me a little is that the rooms you’ll travel through are static. There's no randomised order in what they appear in, nor do they change layouts. I felt weird having the only variable elements being the types and placement of enemies. However, what I found unique is the fact that you’ll always start the encounter in Stealth Mode. You’ll be hidden until you make your first attack, giving you time to study the room and find the perfect spot to begin your assault.

Though, inevitably, you’ll get yourself killed while trying to grasp the ropes of the game, waking up again, back to only your basic equipment. That being said, not everything is lost. During your run, you’ll have picked up Tech points and components, which can be used to upgrade your character across all runs. For example, you can make your guns do more damage, increase your health and shields, gain more scrap, etc. There were other pages for upgrades that weren’t just for stats, such as Superior Items and Synergies.

Due to being in development, I only had access to the first and second zones, with the third still being developed, so the story isn’t finished just yet. There is more to do, though, by offering additional difficulties and challenge runs, adding modifiers and restrictions. They provide unique rewards and more Tech points, so they're worth doing while waiting for the next content update.

I see the potential in Deadzone: Rogue. I’m not the biggest fan of the deep, flat voice acting of the player character (maybe on purpose, maybe not), but the gunplay is fun, the various element effects are interesting to interact with, and I could see myself losing quite a few hours into it. Oh, and you can do all this in co-op, too! I’ll just have to wait and see what else is in store for this amnesiac who is way too good with guns.