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0 Deadzone: Rogue is a roguelite FPS by Prophecy Games (Tribes 3) now available in Early Access via Steam or Epic. Live, die, repeat in this foray onto a drifting colony ship to Mars that never made it. Fight your way through bots, cyborgs, and even reanimated corpses as you search for answers not only about the ship but about yourself.
Going Rogue in the Deadzone
Deadzone: Rogue has been on my radar for a while now. I spent a good amount of time playing the demo, which left me wanting more. Even as an Early Access launch, the game has not been disappointing in the slightest. Check out my thoughts on this latest roguelite below!
Gameplay
Deadzone: Rogue is a first person shooter roguelite that can be played solo or co-op. As a [insert spoiler here], fight and die to upgrade and fight again through a colony ship meant to reach Mars. Play through various story and specialty missions across different zones of the ship. Pick up augments, perks, and items at the end of each sector to upgrade and fill out your build. How you approach each encounter is ultimately up to you. Use tech from runs to advance tech masteries and other items for stronger builds.
Roboquest is the only other FPS roguelite that comes to mind of the many, many roguelites that have come across my desk. Deadzone: Rogue does a very good job of keeping things true and random to the roguelite genre. How you choose to upgrade your character between runs is completely up to you and there does not appear to be any right or wrong way to go. It has also been easy to pick up on, having formerly been a mostly FPS player, and the number different weapons and variety of everything available to drop during each run is massive. I found myself tending to base my builds off whatever early weapons drop and go from there.
There are three zones currently in Deadzone: Rogue but only two playable at the moment. Each zone has a main story mission, some specialty missions, as well as challenge missions. Each mission also has five different degrees of difficulty. I have not yet played any of the challenge missions but the specialty missions are notable because each tailors your gameplay a certain way. For example, in the Headhunter mission seen in the screenshot above, a sniper rifle is the only available primary weapon and you must land accurate weakpoint shots to defeat enemies. Missing the shot or not hitting the weakpoint results in a longer reload time. So these specialty missions provide a bit more of a challenge focus which is a nice bit of difference among roguelites.
Graphics & Audio
Deadzone: Rogue looks, feels, and sounds great with default settings. I didn’t put on an FPS counter or anything but I didn’t notice much, if any, difference between native 4k and 2k resolutions. I did note that the last few days my game has been automatically resizing itself to being a tiny window when it launches. Hopefully that is just a small bug that is easy to address. I also observed some odd model issues at times where there would be a kind of ghost model of the enemy I was fighting floating around the screen. Thankfully those instances were few and far between so that they are not game breaking.
Longevity
Before even getting my hands on Early Access, I had already spent about 10 hours in the Deadzone: Rogue demo. I’ll be spending at least 20-40 hours more in the game with ease. The game has a lot of longevity even now. Upgrades and unlocks are plentiful to keep motivation high for more runs. I’m curious to see how the harder difficulties play out after filling up your upgrades. Also, the simple RNG of the roguelite elements makes each run more or less unique than the last.
Final Thoughts
Deadzone: Rogue is really shaping up to be a great game. It has high replay value with its varying difficulty and a wide variety of weapons, bonuses, and upgrades. If you’re a fan of roguelites and FPS games, give it a go. If you’re waiting for full release, then at least take a bit to check out the demo. Just know that there’s already enough bang for your buck to pick it up today if it looks interesting to you!
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this preview.
If you enjoy this review, check out my other reviews here.
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