Killsquad is a twin stick shooter mixed with elements from a variety of genre’s from novarama, and while the game at it’s core remains true to the twin stick shooter experience adding levelling elements similar to moba’s unique to each mission along with the variety in both the level and enemy design as well as the variations in the way all of the heroes play make this a highly polished experience and a game that stands out above others in the genre. Offering a choice of single player or online multiplayer up to 4 player co-op action without throwing overwhelming waves of enemies at you whilst keeping it fun and challenging.
The game has been released today in early access with a roadmap ahead for future plans and expansions, but they wish to see what the community would like and build the game towards what players would like to see as well as fix those elements which don’t work for players and this is a good way of designing the game going forward to ensure the community get the experience they would like from the game. Even saying this the game as it stands seems a very polished experience and while there are a couple of bugs like breaking animations or causing enemies to lose agro if you do specific things (and really actively refuse to fight you) these bugs are expected in early access and bringing them up helps ensure they won’t be an issue going forward.
At present there are 3 main area’s in the game each with their own feel and experience all being very different, and although the enemies are varients of bigger waves of enemies coming in for melee combat and differing long range enemies as well as a few special ones unique to each area the way they do things does feel different enough, and they all look like they belong in their zones where many other games of the genre would simply throw the same enemy at you in each area rather than having the unique variants designed to fit the area.
The zones themselves offer a significant degree of variety beyond simply aesthetics with the factory area offering zones which traverse between rooms rather than simply being sidescrolling as well as incorporating mazelike stairway sections, and it is inhabited by a variety of mechanised enemies who feel like they belong in the factory zone, where the open world zones have fleshy inhabitants that look like they belong in those zones, with cave spiders inhabiting a crystalline landscape full of crevasses and bridges along with natural disasters occurring in the zone and the final zone currently in early access being a deserted wasteland with flying prawns and other wildlife.
There are a number of touches which have been given to the game which normally get neglected such as background elements making the world feel alive from flocks of birds flying by, to machinery working along in the factory area’s. This along with the level of detail put into the animations and mechanics for all of the skills which do vary greatly from each individual character to make sure that they play very differently to each other despite being two shooting and two melee classes they all feel and play very differently to each other.
Many games of this nature would often have a purely cosmetic difference between characters, but you can see the effort made to ensure the heroes play differently, starting with one of the shooting characters having a selection of skills and upgrades which revolve around marking the enemies with your primary weapon to trigger skills on them later, which plays very differently to the other projectile character who fires a ghostbusters style laser beam and fires huge plasma balls as well as providing health kits on demand for any character to use to heal. The two melee classes also play very differently due to one being very fragile with skills designed for dodging and avoiding enemies, whilst the other gains armour for hitting enemies and rewards remaining up close in the combat as well as having an option for an ultimate which provides momentarily invulnerability for the team.
Every run is different starting fresh with a basic hero and levelling up in a mobaesque fashion from a choice of options to tailor the run to what you require for that specific level based upon your team and the dangers you are facing. Providing a variety of choices for level up progression from synergies that will be unique to your hero or skills that may benefit a larger team, it’s down to you to create a build that works for you in that current moment, and as missions are fairly short levelling and progression happens quite rapidly. The choice comes to whether to explore for more enemies and more experience to make the boss easy or rush down the objective to get the rewards quicker.
A roadmap for expansions has been set out showing that new area’s are planned and being designed as well as extra playable characters, and new factions which may be new enemy types or even lead to further levels and layouts designed around them and this along with the fact that they are planning on expanding based on feedback from players as the game develops shows that they are putting a lot of effort into this game to ensure that it is a very good experience. Even as it stands with only a few worlds it’s very obvious that a lot of care and effort has been put in to ensure the game doesn’t feel stagnant and all the heroes, completion tasks and area’s all feel very unique and offer a variety to keep the gameplay fresh which all adds up to the game being a very polished experience and worth the asking price.
I look forward to seeing how the game progresses and what further developments will be coming out, and it would be really cool if they manage to have a huge roster of playable characters all feeling very unique in their styles and skills though I can understand this would be asking a lot especially as you can also change weapons and items on the characters for the missions, and perhaps further skill tree options would be fantastic to allow even greater customisation for runs though the game really doesn’t require any of this to be a very fun and playable experience worth the asking price.
Get killsquad for yourself over on steam now at https://store.steampowered.com/app/910490/Killsquad/ Currently in early access.
Also curated over at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6860437/