Nov 7

Nov 7 Review | Dead Link - Shoot, Die, Repeat

Do you remember how you barely heard anything about Hades and Dead Cells while they were in early access, only for them to blow up the second they hit 1.0? Deadlink feels like the next game that’s going to do that.

Deadlink takes inspiration from boomer shooters (or their Christian name - arena shooters) like Quake and the new Doom games and then blends that action with a roguelike loop similar to that of Hades. Clear a room, you get a choice of which type of reward is next, as well as choosing between specific upgrades like the boons in that game - except with a big ass shotgun in hand. It also evokes the feeling of “damn, I’m getting my ass kicked” from your first dozen runs in Hades. This is a punishing game when you start it and since there isn't a massive amount of content in the early access version it means you will feel like most of your time spent with this version of the game will involve getting your ass handed to you. Thankfully once you start to get near the end of the content in the 0.2 build this is remedied with the combat shell upgrades which act as permanent upgrades to your character.

That being said, even after you have upgraded your character a fair amount it is not like the game stops being tough as nails. I will clarify that I’m playing the game on a Steam Deck, and that the base controller options don't exactly feel the most elegant yet. However, with the combination of gyro-aim and the back triggers being used for dashes and cooldowns, it did eventually click. The game currently has two biomes - something that was extremely shocking to me due to how hard the first biome boss was. Smart use of the movement and cooldowns are required to get your way through even this first area, not to mind the second.

Currently, the game offers two classes. The soldier is the class you start the game with and is equipped with a shotgun and a rocket launcher, alongside a grapple hook and EMP blast on cooldowns. Eventually, you unlock Hunter (I say unlock; it was selectable from the beginning even when the name was listed as ??? - but hey, it's early access, that's what I signed up for) who focuses more on stealth with translocation and decoy abilities. The game really started to click for me once I unlocked the Hunter class, the hand cannon feels nice and devastated weaker enemies like they were nothing, while the decoy offered room to take a breather. That being said, this may be due to the soldier's shotgun feeling very weak as compared to how you would imagine a shotgun in most arena shooters . In fact even at close range the hand cannon feeling significantly more powerful.

Spoiler alert: things are not going to end well for these two.

Lore-wise, the game takes place in a VR Training simulator, where a federal agency called the ‘CSA’ employs combat shells - androids who take on the copied minds of the most elite agents. The game offers up a lot of worldbuilding - even including a codex for descriptions on anything and everything - but you can ultimately ignore it if you just want to keep at that high-paced action. The soundtrack is also worth mentioning as it has that signature cyberpunk sound full of hard-hitting synths, and perfectly compliments the gameplay.

I’m excited to see where things go for Deadlink; what the team at Gruby has presented so far is incredibly impressive - especially considering it is the developers' first major project. I can see myself playing this one for years to come as it builds its way to a final release. If the team manages to expand the game with content of this quality - as well as ironing out a few bugs, improving controller support, and dealing with balance issues - it could be something truly special when it’s done.