Sublight is a roguelike bullet-hell set in space now in Early Access. In development by solo developer CODEBREW SOFTWARE LTD (Untapped), choose your freighter or fighter and pilot to take on swarms of attacking enemy ships. Build your arsenal as you level and pick up better weapons and upgrade items to survive to complete your mission and beyond. Sublight is only available on PC via Steam
Power Over Speed at Sublight
Maybe one day I’ll stop reviewing roguelites. But that day is not today! Sublight is another that just hit early access and I had seen it pop up as a recommendation a few times. Seems simple enough, so let’s check it out shall we?
Gameplay
Sublight is a space-faring simple roguelite. The player is given the option of ships ranging from light to heavy along with starter weapons. You are also given a choice of captain with a unique passive ability.. The size of your ship determines the number of hardpoints where weapons can be applied, starting health and movement speed. You are also able to select one starting equipment ability. Additional and improved weapons, equipment, and upgrades can be found as you battle your way through each sector.
Credits earned during each run lead you to the Armory, where additional ships, weapons, captains and upgrades can be unlocked. Specific ships and captains don’t appear to have any direct impact on missions in Sublight though, so there’s no need to worry that you’re missing something if a particular one becomes your favorite. Upgrades and new weapons through each run remind me of TerraTech Legion, but without the ability to build out from the designated hardpoints. Movement is fairly slow but I guess it is space and you’re piloting a large ship so it fits. Thankfully you can obtain upgrades for that during the run too.
Being that it is space there’s not exactly a dodge mechanic in this roguelite either. There’s a dash equipment ability that increases your forward speed and ramming ability. There’s also a drift ability but for some reason I couldn’t seem to get that one to work right. I spent more time just trying to maneuver my way away from incoming objects the best I can. Another unique feature of Sublight is that when you’ve completed the mission for the sector, you don’t automatically get booted out. You are able to keep playing as the difficulty increases, presumably for as long as you want until you leave or die.
Graphics & Audio
Sublight is only available on PC. I could load it up onto my Steam Deck but it would appear that saves do not transfer in the cloud yet so I mostly stuck to the PC tower. Default settings seem to work fine and the graphics are fairly low-scale so there is minimal impact on performance. I could see a potential issue with older rigs though once your screen starts filling up with enemies and their numerous weapons firing at you. The environments, both in space and air above a ground backdrop, fit the overall feel of the game well.
The audio track for the game is fitting and doesn’t distract from what’s going on. At times there are lots of explosions though so make sure you don’t have the volume up too high. Yes you can’t hear noises in space but you can here so be aware.
Longevity
Early access games aren’t always easy to estimate longevity for. Sublight is a fairly simple and straightforward roguelite with different difficulty levels for each mission zone. It also includes leaderboards to see where you rank up against others also enjoying the game. At this point what you get out of it is what you’re willing to put into it for time.
Final Thoughts
Sublight has most of the components for a lasting roguelite. My only real complaint at this time is that each zone (at least while playing on easy) seems to be scaled down to a fairly small area. I kept running into zone barriers while simply trying to get out of bad situations and instead running into others. Where the game stands now is constructed from feedback from the community, so maybe that is something that will be addressed later. In the meantime if you’re looking for another casual roguelite, check it out.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoy this review, be sure to check out my other reviews here.
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