Deadzone: Rogue is a fast-paced roguelite FPS set in deep space. Blast through hordes of enemies with devastating weapons. Define your combat style with powerful augments and upgrades. Grow stronger with each death, solo or in co-op. Fight. Die. Revive. Repeat. Thanks to the developer and publisher Prophecy Games we got our hands on a copy and put it through its paces.

When you first boot up into Deadzone: Rogue, you wake up groggy, on a spaceship with no memory of who you are or how you come to be there. Ahead of you are two terminals one is an upgrade terminal that you currently won’t have much use, but it will become much more important after you complete your first run through of the game, the other is a level select terminal that shows a map of the ship, also not much use to you as you jump in to the game for the first time, but it becomes much more useful later. Armed with only a pistol you realise if you are ever going to solve the mystery of who you are and how you came to be in this mysterious situation is to push forward and explore the ship you are currently on.

One of the most innovative features of Deadzone: Rogue immediately hits you as you walk through the first door you encounter on the ship, you enter a room full of robotic enemies but suddenly realise that none of them are engaging in combat with you, this is because every time you clear room and enter a new one you automatically go into stealth mode and stay invisible to enemies and have free reign to walk around and survey your surroundings and ascertain the best point to start your attack on your foes, you can even move explosive barrels around the level and place them strategically in order to take out as many robots as possible, once you fire a single shot off though everything will start attacking you so it’s important to take your time surveying your surroundings before launching an assault. This is a great mechanic, and I would love to see this expanded on more in the future, instead of just being able to move barrels around it would be great to be able to lay down traps and other gadgets for an even greater level of strategic gameplay.

As with most roguelites the basic gameplay loop sees you clearing sections of a map and getting more powerful along the way whether its via acquired loot or perks picked up along the way, Deadzone: Rogue is no exception to this as enemies you defeat drop scrap (required for upgrades to weapons and armour at fabricating stations) and sometimes health replenishing orbs or even armour and weapons, they can also drop tech components that help you acquire permanent upgrades that you can choose from at the start of each new run. Once you have cleared a room you then get to choose between 3 weapons or perks to add to your arsenal and then you move on to the next room, the premise being that you get more powerful as you progress through each room, but your enemies also get more powerful at the same time. If you die you lose everything you have acquired so far (except for tech components) and you start right back at the first room of the spaceship you originally woke up in, which is where the upgrade terminal now comes into play as you can spend your acquired tech components on permanent upgrades such as extra weapon damage, increased shields, extra grenade explosion radius and much, much more. In fact, the more zones of the ship you clear the more upgrade trees you have access to, up to 3 in total, and this provides a staggering amount of options for you to customise your character to how you like to play.

Any shooter without great gunplay is mediocre, and I am happy to say that Deadzone: Rogue exceeded all my expectations in this department, the gunplay and mechanics in this game are absolutely superb. You can carry both a primary and secondary weapon as well as a grenade on your travels through the spaceship, these range from pistols and assault rifles all the way through to some seriously devastating light machine guns, all of these can be upgraded both in rarity and in level at the various fabrication stations you will encounter after every few rooms you clear. You also have a dash that you can use every second or so that becomes essential to master in order to keep yourself alive in some of the more frantic levels of the game. It feels absolutely incredible to zip around the map using your dash, pop off a couple of shots and then dash back around a corner in order to get a better angle on your enemies. Speaking of enemies, the game features a wide variety of robotic opponents for you to disperse including mini bosses and major bosses, as you delve deeper into the game itself extra twists are added where for instance you will have enemies that are protected by shield units or that can be healed by health bots, which makes it even more important to plan how you traverse each area and which enemies are your priority targets. This planning becomes even more crucial when playing co-op with friends, and it feels incredible when your group plans out a set of tactics and all goes according to plan. Deadzone: Rogue features some of the best action gunplay that I have ever experienced, and I play a lot of shooters, so this praise does not come lightly.

Graphically the game is not going to win any awards, but incorporated with the games audio it does nail the sense of dread one would experience when walking through the darkened, shadowy corridors of an abandoned spaceship, the only issue I have is that a lot of areas start to look the same after a while and there isn’t much diversity in the level design, at least until you get to some of the later parts of the game, honestly in the end this didn’t really bother me that much as I was far too drawn into the gameplay to really notice most of the time.

As someone who is not usually a fan of roguelite games Deadzone: Rogue really took me by surprise, Prophecy Games have really nailed the gunplay in this game and built a really solid foundation (for an early access game) to expand upon. I rarely ever stay up past midnight playing games through the night these days, but this game had me suffering from ‘one more round’ syndrome quite heavily. The gameplay is addictive whether playing solo or with a group of friends and I can quite easily say it is one of the best games I have played this year so far. If you like shooters then jump in and give it a try, I am sure you won’t be disappointed.

The game is available now via Steam Early Access, but a full release date is not known at this time.