In amongst the thousands of games fighting for time and attention in this Steam Next Fest, Godbreakers is exactly the kind of action roguelike that I'm craving right now. It's like thirst or hunger; too long without a game like this and I'll start to break down. It's a third-person action game with four-player co-op, big bosses with MMO-style AoE markers, and draftable items that torque your build to the moon. Put it straight in my veins, please.
The Godbreakers demo, which is near the top of the most-played charts on Steam Next Fest and has amassed over 300 very positive user reviews ahead of the full release on October 23, took some getting used to. But by the time I reached the first major boss, I was locked in and hungry for more.
This game follows the Soulslike template a bit, with light attacks on the shoulder button and heavy hits on the trigger. You can end a light combo with a heavy finisher, charge up a heavy attack, jump and slam down, and burn one of your three regenerating dodge charges to interrupt your attacks or evade enemies whenever you need to. I gather that each unlockable class comes with a special move on a cooldown, and you can also periodically steal single-use abilities from enemies that deal heavy damage. It's a bit like Dauntless, actually, may it rest in peace.
This is a fairly simple action game, but it looks and feels great right out of the box. As I started to stack on passive effects – backstab damage, random debuffs, extra health, and so on – I tweaked my play style slightly to make the most of them. In a full group of four, I can see those synergies getting multiplicatively fun.
It's exciting enough battling through rooms of dudes in genuinely lovely sci-fantasy environments, but the final boss was the high point for me. For the biome I chose, that was a big floating skull that summons occasional waves of enemies, starts every DPS phase with an area-wide attack that you avoid by hiding behind walls, and regularly chucks red AoE columns your way with its tentacles and energy beams. It's all very MMO-lite and it works well with the bones of combat. There's no lock-on, at least not one I could find, but that was never a problem for me. I beat the boss on my first run – the devs say the demo biomes are deliberately easier – and had to stop myself from running it again.
So far, Godbreakers is easy to pick up, it's got that chunky and colorful low-poly aesthetic that I never get tired of, and the potential for RPG-lite progression is pretty solid. It's no Hades 2, I don't think, but it's exactly the kind of game that I want to play with my friends, and I can see myself putting some hours in solo, too.
10 Steam Next Fest demos you shouldn't miss before they're gone.
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