Deadlink, a new roguelite FPS with some octane speed

 

A new Boomer shooter coming, introducing Deadlink

Boomer shooters are flourishing in this era thanks to commercial engines as Unity and Unreal Engine, as they pushed many minor and indie studios into the industry. Deadlink was made thanks to UE that made it good visually and gameplay wise, and today we will tackle this one with a lot of pride and joy as a successful upcoming game. Deadlink is a new high octane FPS game developed by Gruby Entertainment and developed by SuperGG.com released in Early Access on Oct. 2022 built using the glorious UE4. Deadlink is currently in Early Access but it has a load of content that will keep you entertained for some long time.

Deadlink is a roguelite game, like Hades. You keep replaying over and over, isn't that repetitive? yes and no. Roguelite game mechanics basically depend on the repetitiveness of the game, but it has a different taste to it, as each time there is a random generation of dungeons / levels, random change for item and gold drops for example, even there is a random chance for getting into a mini-boss before the main boss. This keeps the repetitiveness of the game at bay, as you don't know what will happen or what will the next dungeon will be like, what drops will I get, what type of enemies i will fight etc. Deadlink has a good visuals and good gameplay with flashy hooks, swaps and soo much more like no other. Deadlink feels responsive with no control lag, good mechanics and vast arsenal of weapons, abilities and enemies. Deadlink is what looks like to be a game inspired by Source Code movie, where you the protagonist, go through what looks like a simulation on a network that groups you and the evil company and its men on one dimension, you have to defeat them and kill them. The game narrative looks good, yet not so polished but not bad and there is always a clue about a story in the game. 

Gruby Entertainment  really nailed it when designing the procedural dungeon generator, cause for how long you play the game, you will never feel the same with any dungeon generated. This what makes a good roguelite game. Inside the dungeons itself, there are platforms high and low with jumpers and ammo all over the place, looking like a heaven for an FPS game. Basically there are 3 classes in the game, I played only with two classes, The Soldier and the Hunter. The Soldier uses a shotgun and has the main ability to hook to the spheres that give you leverage to jump and hump all over the dungeon in minutes and make stunts while killing those enemies. The other class was my favorite, The Hunter uses a gun as his primary weapon, reminded me of the Wingman from Apex Legends, small yet strong. The hunter utilize the ability to swap places with spheres and enemies, this makes you the DeJaVu of the dungeon. Both the hook and the swap abilities makes up for a lot stunts that you can utilize in no other FPS game. For example, an enemy throws a grenade at you, you time up the swap with him so the grenade hit him on swapping position and you get to safety. This all happens so fast, so make sure to have a good keyboard and mouse.

The enemy roster in Deadlink is so vast and different, with some enemies look like each other. There are the basic gunslingers, the gunslingers that throw grenades at your face, there is a sumo fighter, which was a little bit bullet spongy but thanks to the weak point system, where elite enemies has a weak points that you target for critical damage. There even some transporter enemies that attack in a fan shaped cone attack, those were really low HP but hard to target and require to use hook and swap abilities, and even target them at the first fight. There were some stages that contained mini bosses like the image above, which is hard at first but it gets repetitive as, you get accustomed to the ticking timer of their attacks, also they attack based on your location, so its not that hard, because if you keep moving, it will keep your life easier. This doesn't cancel that Deadlink is a fairly hard game like all other roguelite games. There is an ability the you get at the end of each dungeon, you could also get mods to your weapons, the gun for the hunter for example can add flame mod that makes fire damage to enemies hit by that weapon, or electric mod or corrosive etc.

The Verdict

Deadlink is a high octane FPS roguelite game, currently on Steam Early Access. Based on Unreal Engine, the game is stable, and more accessible to devices around the world. UE also allowed for some good neon lights like no other, accompanied with game logic and gameplay. Overall a great experience, go get the game here on steam.