As a gamer, once in a while, I come across a title that humbles my ego of being good at action games. It seems like I’ve come across another one again. Morbid Metal is a game that has brought me back to the days when I was still getting used to how to react in fast-paced action games.
But that kind of difficulty is not a bad thing. If you are someone who enjoys a challenge in video games, then you will feel right at home with this title. Morbid Metal is an example of how passion projects are still alive in the indie side of the video game industry.
Developers at Screen Juice are said to have put almost seven years of their lives into crafting something that looks and plays like something that should be the work of an established AAA studio.
After having put multiple hours into the game’s early access this past week, I have a general understanding of where the game stands. A lot of check boxes are being ticked out for what is to be expected from a modern hack-and-slash, roguelite. But there are also a few things that left me wishing for more from this experience.
Morbid Metal has a pinch of biblical undertone
Morbid Metal’s story does not linger around for long, engaging the player with some grand setting. After a few minutes of fiddling with the initial tutorial level, I was dropped right into the game’s hostile world with my weapons and only the path forward.
However, that’s not to say that you should not expect any kind of lore building. The story mostly takes a back seat but is conveyed through small cutscenes and dialogues for most of the game.
Morbid Metal’s setting is biblical in nature. You play as the last created AI in a post-collapse simulation. There are little to no signs of organic life in this world, barring the green flora.
Your ultimate goal is to be the next evolution for humanity and bring them out of extinction with the help of Eden. Through this journey, you will be slaying our own kind and unravelling what happened to life in this world previously.
That’s the most I know so far, and also that’s all you need from the plot to jump right into the game. Because as soon as you do that, the gameplay and combat become the main attraction.
There is plenty of fun to be had with the game’s combat, but..
Combat in Morbid Metal can be very fun from the very start of the tutorial, as it establishes very early how much of the game is all about sleek and smooth action. But there is a small catch to how the whole thing feels at the moment.
When it comes to combat in action games, especially hack-and-slash titles, combos are an integral part of the design, which makes them appealing. A good combo system will have a balance of buttons and abilities, which will make for creative game design.
In Morbid Metal’s case, I found the whole experience quite linear. There’s a regular attack button, but there are no heavy or alternate buttons to combo with. Instead, this game has skills tied specifically to the character assigned to buttons.
Sure, they can be upgraded through progress during a run, and eventually, chaining skills into regular attacks becomes second nature. But the overall intricacies of allowing players to be creative feel lacking.
Shapeshifting makes Morbid Metal’s gameplay stand out
However, not all is lost when it comes to extracting the fun out of this game. Because what is lost in combos is compensated for by Morbid Metal’s shapeshift systems.
This is the gameplay mechanic that makes the combat shine. Throughout your progress, you will come across new characters, and you will unlock them as playable.
The cool thing about that is you will be able to shapeshift between these alternate characters on the fly. Each of these characters has its own archetype, skills, and playstyles.
Switching on the fly in the heat of combat is what unlocks the creative potential. At one moment, you might be playing an agile character with fast sword slices, and in the very next instance, you can shapeshift to a tanky character and brute force through the enemies.
Multiple Playable Characters to switch between
At the moment, the Early Access version of the game allows for three different playable characters, which you can switch between at any point after they are unlocked.
The first and main character that you will play as is named Flux. A nimble and fast character with incredibly satisfying sword combos. But the downside is poor crowd control; Flux is mostly limited to focusing on one enemy at a time.
This is when you should shapeshift to Ekku, the second character that you unlock. He is a heavy hitter with big swings and slams. He can easily overpower big brawler enemies, but the downside is that Ekku has the slowest speed.
The last character you can unlock currently is Vekta, an expert with projectiles and ranged combat. Vekta is very good at dealing with annoying enemies, such as the ones that are constantly in flight.
Each of them comes with their special increments and decrements, and to fully unlock the potential, I had to use quick shapeshift during combat. Switching from Vetka pulling in enemies to Ekku slamming them or launching them up in the air and then shapeshifting into Flux for the final execution.
Morbid Metal’s levels represent its dying worlds
We also need to talk about the level designs in Morbid Metal. The early access allowed me to explore two important levels, each with its unique bosses. I won’t be talking about the bosses and leave to for you to experience, but I will say it’s quite the challenge to get past them.
The two playable levels are completely different kinds of biomes; one looks green with lush vegetation, and the other is an abandoned city. Both of them convey a postapocalyptic setting.
In traditional roguelike fashion, dying would take me back to the starting point of a level. I cannot state how many times I had to go through the first section of the game because it’s that hard to clear through levels completely unscathed. But repeating them made me realize the level layouts get rearranged quite a bit.
Procedurally generated levels in a roguelike game is not something new and revolutionary. But I have to say, without them in Morbid Metal, things would’ve been a bit bland, because the levels themselves don’t really stand out in terms of pure art style.
However, I must say exploring nooks and crannies in each of these areas is worth it more often than others. This is because there’s more to just progressing forward and jumping into the next fight.
There are side locations in these maps that provide challenge modes, and some have crates where players can swap out skills. Something that I was missing out on earlier was random healing and skill item drops that would be hidden in parts of the levels, so make sure to explore every part. But beware cause doing so you might break the map and fall through.
Exceptional Performance for an Indie Game on release
As I have said already, Morbid Metal is a title that marks how AAA-looking games are still alive in the indie scene. This title did not give me any kind of problems when it comes to performances.
After having tested the game on multiple hardware types, which include RTX 3070 and 9060 XT cards, I can confidently confirm that the game runs beautifully. Morbid Metal, in its highest fidelity settings, looks absolutely stunning.
Game creator Felix Schade, after being inspired by several notable action games of the past era, wanted to create his own action game. He started the project in the Unity Engine and never looked back.
Yeah, you read that right, surprisingly, the engine used for the game is Unity. In an age where most of the studios are turning towards Unreal Engine with stunted optimisation.
But when all is said and done, bugs are inevitable, and Morbid Metal’s current review build at least had quite a few of them. I personally experienced an annoying one that made my jump button stop working for a while.
The developers clearly acknowledged these bugs and were transparent in reporting to us the notable ones we should keep in mind when playing the game.
There is still room for a lot of improvements
Morbid Metal is a good hack and slash game, but it does not stand out from its own crowd side the initial impressions. The game looked incredible in the trailers, but once I stepped into the world, it started getting dry really fast.
One of the main reasons for this is that the game does not do enough to relate players to its world. What other important games have done throughout history is create characters and worlds that are still discussed to date.
Morbid Metal characters do not give me enough reason to stick around with them. Maybe that was a deliberate choice in direction from the creator, but as a player, I felt it is doing more to keep me from coming back to the game.
The good part is that these things can still change. Morbid Metal will be dropping in early access with future updates and expansions still to come, so all criticisms still have room for changes.
This title has the potential to be something exceptional by the time it is fully released. Hopefully, in the future, all of us will get back for more Morbid Metal.
