Early Access is often a troubling proposition. Is the game ready for the public, or are the public just glorified beta testers? That’s where we come in. Welcome to the Early Access Report, where Player 2’s writers tackle an early access title to determine if it is worth your time now, or if it’s something you should keep an eye on in the future.
The Early Access Report - Morbid Metal
Key Information
The Game: Morbid Metal
The Pitch: Devil May Roguelike
Shapeshift into powerful characters in real time, chain impactful combos, and tear through waves of deadly machines and brutal bosses in this fast-paced hack-and-slash rogue-lite.
Explore the remains of a distant dystopian future and survive in a gritty and brutal world of high‑octane, fast‑paced hack‑and‑slash action. Each cycle reveals fragments of forgotten truth about mankind’s self‑inflicted downfall.
The Developer: Screen Juice
Morbid Metal is a bit of a strange proposition, especially when it comes to how it is being published. This is a game being developed by a very small team that somehow caught the eye of Ubisoft, who have jumped in to handle the publishing duties. Now, 15 years ago, that wouldn’t have been odd, but in this day and age, with how Ubisoft currently stands, it is something of an oddity. It is, however, an oddity I can get behind because this is a game that deserves your attention, and it has come out of the Early Access gates, giving a very positive first impression.
Morbid Metal is the lovechild of Devil May Cry and a Roguelike, and if that sounds like a blast to you, well, you can stop reading now and mosey on over to Steam to grab a copy. Players take on the role of some sort of conciousness who can inhabit one of three combat shells. Each of these shells has a different speciality, one hits fast, one hits hard and the other hits from a distance. Players can switch between the three on the fly, chaining attacks, specials and dodges together in elegant ways that form the basis of a super satisfying combat system.
This combat is the reason to keep coming back. It is, in a word, delicious. All the satisfaction of a game like DmC or Bayonetta is here, and players who master the tools will really be rewarded. Hitting a string of fast-paced attacks, before a switch to my big hitter to finish off a shielded enemy, then finally mopping up the stragglers with ranged attacks, all in one combo, I might add, is glorious. It is clear to me that the developers spent a lot of time getting the balance right before releasing it into the world. There are a few instances where something felt just a shade off, but I am confident that as the game progresses through early access, these small balancing issues will be sorted out, especially with the larger pool of player data the developers now have access to.
Graphically, the game is a stunner, and as a result, it isn’t the best on a weaker system. It sings on my gaming rig, but I had to make some pretty heavy compromises to get smooth gameplay on my Xbox Ally X. I imagine it would struggle even more on the weaker handhelds or older home systems. That said, the Early Access process gives the developer the chance to refine and optimise the game as they go, so it could very well get to the point where these portable systems work perfectly. Roguelikes are perfect on handhelds after all.
There is a hefty chunk of content in the game so far, including 2 full biomes, which equals about 10ish hours of gameplay to finish the main path. Of course, being a roguelike, completion is never really completion, so going back again and again is really the appeal. The game’s road map is also offering a host of new content, including a new character class and new biomes as the development process rolls on, so there is plenty to look forward to as the developers continue to refine and add to the title.
If there is one slight issue that I have right now is that the persistent upgrades feel a little underwhelming. It is a really tough balancing act to get persistent upgrades in a roguelike to a point where getting one feels satisfying, yet doesn’t make the game too easy. With Morbid Metal, the upgrades are all a little underwhelming, with it hard for the player to tell that they have even received a boost. That said, I don’t think I have ever played a roguelike in early access that hasn’t had its rewards system reworked before version 1.0, so I expect that will happen here as well.
The truth is, Morbid Metal has an incredibly promising future ahead. It is rare to come across an EA game that is this polished and feature-complete. It makes this an easy recommendation for anyone who loves games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry and isn’t sick of roguelikes yet. With a host of new content and balancing on the way, I can’t see why interested players shouldn’t jump in early, get the discount and play along as the game reaches its final form.
Morbid Metal was played on the PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
