As I smash one robot into another, sending them both spiralling to their doom, I can absolutely see why this is Nicholas Routhier’s, co-founder and technical director, favourite part of the game they’ve helped to create, “Making the choice of the finishing punch, the whole realisation around it, sending enemies flying, exploding against the walls, with the sound and everything, it’s a simple but really meaningful thing.”
Battle Shapers is a sci-fi FPS roguelike, built, as the genre dictates, on a replayable loop of death and destruction. However, the team at Metric Empire have clearly spent a lot of time finding ways to make their game stand out within this somewhat overcrowded genre.
You take control of Ada, a Battle Shaper who’s revived by the gloriously cute Meemo when it becomes apparent that something terrible has befallen New Elysium where they reside. There’s a steadily increasing amount of corruption that’s spreading through the digital kingdom, and, as anyone with a hard drive can attest, corruption needs to be eradicated.
Fortunately, Ada is perfectly suited to the task. As a Battle Shaper she’s capable of growing and adapting to the ongoing needs of the battle she’s embroiled in, changing out her weaponry, expanding her repertoire of moves, and stealing abilities and parts from her vanquished foes.
Those parts take the form of Cores, and defeating the residing Overlords of each area will allow you to take their Core and apply it to Ada, changing the abilities she has access to. You equip a main core and a backup one, so you can mix and match these cores to create hybrid builds which will hopefully play to your personal strengths and to how you play the game.
This is a system that further evolves as well with each defeat. Beat an Overlord and take their Core and the remaining Overlords will grow and adapt as well, drawing on a random group of modifiers to change up their play style. As a player, it means that the game is going to evolve and adapt, throwing things at you that you won’t expect, ramping up the difficulty and keeping you guessing through each run.
That roguelike loop of incremental progression is therefore present and correct, but comes with some interesting new wrinkles that should stop, or at least slow, the players’ ability to find an unbeatable build.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t carnage and chaos here. Battle Shapers is a brisk and bruising game of FPS combat, with slick and speedy movement tied to an array of abilities that maximise the destruction you can deal to your robotic foes. There’s a host of different weaponry to discover, as well as enhancements that add an extra ability like grenades to the mix. You might discover more powerful variants of each of these as you progress as well, making it well worth finding your way through ever section of a level before getting to the Overlord.
Battle Shapers’ chunky artstyle reminds me of Small Soldiers and Wall-E by way of Overwatch, with that toy-like quality and sheen applied to the vibrant colour palette. I love it, and it’s a world that I can see players really engaging with. Each Overlord has a specific biome as well, mixing things up and giving each area its own feel.
Through our hands-on and developer demonstration, we were able to see two Overlords, Volt Colussus and Strike Mantis, and besides boasting a very cool visual style, it was apparent that these boss characters would be no pushover, taking me by surprise with the variety of attacks and their pure aggression. In fact, my first face-off against Volt Colussus lasted about 10 seconds and left me chomping at the bit to get back to have another go.
Each run begins from the Hideout. From here you can spend any of the earned crystals you’ve gained in your last run to unlock permanent upgrades that will hopefully give you an edge the next time around. As you make your way through each run you can also earn currency that you can spend with the delightful robotic merchants Huck and Hauly prior to the big showdown at the end of your chosen level, giving you one last chance to enhance Ada. All of this loot disappears when you die, so you might as well get it spent. Runs are designed to be fairly quick, letting players get in a number of attempts in a realtively short amount of time, and it’s always refreshing to find a roguelike that’s actually respectful of player’s time.
The team took the time to show me how far the upgrade tree goes, and there’s already a host of weaponry, upgrades and enhancements to unlock, and that’s just heading into Early Access, with big plans for more to come. The level of variety is excellent, and it feels as though players will have plenty of tools with which they can free New Elysium.
If you’re searching for a fast and frenetic FPS with bags of character, and a satisfying gameplay loop that feels just right, then Battle Shapers may just be the one for you.
Battle Shapers launches into Steam Early Access today, 3rd of October 2023.
