WAR RATS: The Rat em Up Preview

I think games are doing rats dirty, treating them as tutorial fodder more often than not — no, they’re much more hardy and resilient than that, and WAR RATS: The Rat em Up is their time to shine. In wootusart Industries’ action-packed debut, a lot of rodents perish, but they go down swinging with no shortage of dramatic one-liners as they squeak out of existence. It’s quite the gore-fest; in fact, I just finished my second run through the Early Access campaign, and all throughout, the battlefields overflowed with rat guts, loot, and sweet, sweet CHz balls.

WAR RATS is a 2D side-scrolling shoot ‘em up that blends tower defence with some roguelite elements. At the time of writing this preview, I’ve had the pleasure of trying out the tutorial and full single-player campaign, as well as improvements introduced in Update 1, which include a toggle for friendly fire and a multi-slot save system.

While there isn’t a deep story guiding your adventure through Ratopia, you do have a clear goal: retake your home from the metal clutches of TechnoRat. The campaign puts you in the cheesy shoes of a commander, leading Ratineers and other types of troops in a fight to the death. Most dialogue comes right before you enter a level, as your boss will brief you ahead of each mission, detailing whether you’re hitting the enemy’s headquarters or sabotaging their CHz factories. From then on, you and your fellow vermin will let your weapons do the talking — shotguns, grenades, Ratzookas, and more.

Depending on the route you take on the map, this war can span nine or 10 zones, culminating in a tough final boss battle. Considering TechnoRat wants to turn Ratopia into a land of squeaky cyborgs, many of your foes are part-mech, part-rodent. There’s a good amount of variety to their visual designs, as well as the kinds of challenges they present. Some enemies are hulking metal contraptions that have an underbelly weak spot, for instance, while others fly over in speedy, hard-to-hit drones, shooting you from the sky.

To retake TechnoRat’s territories, you need to get one of your Ratineers from your base and into the enemy’s territory at the other end of the level, which is guarded by a shield. Whether you’re victorious or die, you’ll always make a pitstop at the Rat Dealer, a shop where you can buy new weapons and upgrades. Upon death, you can keep anything already purchased, but lose gear that you picked up mid-fight. So, for example, if you decided to up your health and speed before dying, you can upgrade them even further, improving your chances of success in the next run.

When you begin a mission, both your allies and foes come out in waves. However, you only get three Ratineers per wave, while the enemy will often send out much more. As such, it’s important to call in reinforcements, which you can do by pressing Q to bring up your radio. Though you can only recruit basic Ratineers early on, you’ll level up with each kill and gain access to more troops, such as Rat Hounds, Rat Mind Scalpers, Shield Rats, and Rocket Rats. Not all units succeed against every enemy, though: Hounds are quick and squishy, for example, while Shields are slower and tankier.

Aside from marching in with your vermin army, you’re also responsible for building structures to assist in the fight. Each construction site has a back and front slot, allowing you to assemble Turrats, Shrines of the Rat, or Ratilities. The name is self-explanatory, but the Turrats category consists of structures that will shoot enemy units that come within range, giving your Ratineers extra coverage. Shrines are buff-oriented, supplying your troops with extra health or damage, which are often the first two things I craft in a level. I’m definitely looking forward to the Speed Shrine that’s planned for a later Early Access update, as many of my squeaky friends are slow walkers.

Finally, there are the Ratilities, and I’d argue the utility they offer is equally as important as the damage-pumping Turrats. In this list, you have four buildings to choose from: a Campsite for healing and restocking ammo; a Barraticade for the construction site’s front slot, protecting any other structures behind it; a CHz Pumper that throws out CHz balls periodically; and a Teleporatter that lets you go to and from two teleporters.

Whether you’re calling in reinforcements or building, everything costs CHz, little cheesy balls that appear whenever you kill an enemy, destroy a barrel in the environment, or craft a CHz Pumper. Managing your cheesy gold is vital, as you’ll want enough at the end of a battle to purchase upgrades, ammo, and more at the Rat Dealer’s shop when you’re between missions.

For an Early Access title, especially one that has only had one update out of the seven planned, WAR RATS feels very polished. The gameplay is simple, yet fun, and it seems everything is designed to keep the pace fast, as you can demolish and rebuild structures in an instant, pick up ammo and CHz just by walking over them, and quickly get extra troops with a single button. The short time between waves also keeps you on your toes constantly, so you never have too much downtime.

Additionally, WAR RATS already feels like it has a rat-tastic amount of replayability. I currently have one campaign where I’m focusing on upgrading my pistols and making my character extra durable by upping my health. In another run, I’m using my sentry guns for nearly everything, which is good fun. I’ll note that even on the Ratgular (regular) difficulty level, this game is quite tough, but rewarding, and it gets especially hard on the Hairyratballs mode, which decreases CHz, increases enemies, and causes you to level up slowly.

There are some minor drawbacks. It doesn’t feel great when a stack of crates is in front of your Turrat, but in order to break it, you simultaneously damage your tower. The inventory could also use more work: you’re constantly picking up extra items mid-battle that are meant to be equipped to give your rat extra health, speed, or weapon buffs. However, you can’t organise what you grab, and if you want to destroy an item, the button overlaps with the text describing what it does.

But of course, WAR RATS: The Rat em Up is still in the works! Future updates will bring an NG+ mode with harder enemies, new gear, your very own nest to customise, and multiplayer. If you’d like to try this fun, cheese-filled title, it’s out now in Early Access on PC via Steam.