Deadzone: Rogue

The game is decent, 100% can't lie to you there. But I wouldn't recommend people buy the game because of the (not so recent anymore) news regarding its sequel. For those that have not played the game, allow me to explain. If you just want to see how good the game is as a product, I've also detailed my criticisms of the games mechanics/core gameplay loop at the bottom. Prophecy games has had an unfortunate history with game development. You can still see the remnants of it in their Tribes 3 game still on the store, marked "early access." The game hasn't received any major updates, the discord and servers are dead, and it's basically abandonware. A year before, Starsiege: Deadzone was released. It was an early access extraction looter performed poorly; the combat felt uninspired and the game itself was a little clunky. The game was shortly after shut down, but the devs promised anyone who had played the game would instead receive a free copy of their newest title Deadzone: Rogue. This game would have multiple demos, and free early access until its initial major release. Everyone was skeptical it would do well. But surprisingly, it defied expectations. The game, while flawed, was a major increase in quality over their previous entries. Not even a year later, they announce the sequel to be made, Deadzone: Rogue 2, where we are now. And that's where the problems began. The problem is Deadzone: Rogue still feels unfinished. There's game-breaking bugs, online mode still feels broken, and honestly the game just feels like it had bigger opportunities to be made a deeper, more well-rounded game. Deadzone: Rogue doesn't feel like it had a proper development cycle, and it feels like Prophecy is choosing to instead cash-in on their games rather than build quality pieces of work that continue to get updates. It feels anti-consumer. Whether it is or isn't is up to the individual: Some people will say that the game is finished and the devs have the right to start their next game no matter how long it took. Others will disagree and say the game deserved a full "proper" development cycle. I personally lean more towards the latter. There's only two scenarios this can go if this kind of development behavior continues. One, the sequel goes badly and people once again lose faith in Prophecy games' dev team until they can produce a quality game again. Or two, the game does well, and the devs are instead encouraged towards a Call of Duty style of aggressive development. A dev team continuously releasing entries in a game year after year with little regard for innovation or finishing the previous one, leaving each game feel more or less the same. Of course, the second one could also not happen, but with how early they were to jump on the sequel, it's not an entirely illogical conclusion. I don't think that kind of dev behavior should be encouraged, so even if the game is decent, I wouldn't recommend the game for the sake of consumerism. TL;DR: Game is decent (not the best FPS OR roguelite, or FPS roguelite) but the devs don't feel pro-consumer. My response to the criticisms (alongside a more deep dive into the games mechanics itself): There's no winning, you have no hours in the game and give a negative review "you didn't play enough of it to give a proper review" You play the game a lot and give it a negative review and people say "how can you give a game with 91 hours a bad review? Just stop playing if you didn't like it lol" I will reiterate: The game is NOT bad. I am NOT saying this game is slop. I disagree with the PRACTICES OF THE DEV TEAM, and I think that their aggressive development is a bad precedent moving forward. I sincerely hope their next work is a work of quality and they do not milk the series, but reputation exists for a reason. This is their first big hit in a series of flops, and I'm saying this from a place of passion that I want to see this sequel go well. Regardless of what you believe in the devs or the sequel, I do also think it was terrible PR to announce it so early for the fact that there's any large-scale discourse/dissenting opinion around it in general. While I don't think DZR2 needs to be live service (please don't) I do think that games don't deserve to get abandoned (see my explanation on Tribes 3) and DZR1 still feels unpolished in some areas. AI pathing is okay at best, and verticality makes the AI just lose all sense of direction. The AI is really just the equivalent of "move towards and shoot/swing" and lacks any interesting tactics that set it apart from other enemies, the only differences either being having an element or having a different bullet spray. And before people say that's too much, keep in mind games 20 years old had these implemented (half-life). Lack of proper variety in enemy and enemy AI makes the game an equivalent of a dopamine rush with big damage go up, and lacks any deep mechanics. Similarly, the player themselves lacks any meaningful variety: Guns are very clearly skewed towards fastest fire rate, as there is no compensation for elemental or crit chance/damage on slower firing weapons. This means a faster firing weapon has a higher raw dps from more crit connections, and disproportionately better element procs, both of which are exacerbated with making your build centered around either. Basically, unless you run very specific builds, any slow firing weapon aside from maybe the crossbow and sniper/DMR are just straight up worse to run overall. It especially sucks because these slower weapons also often take longer to reload and barely have any extra ammo to compensate. As an fps, there are unfortunately better in the cyberpunk aesthetic. And as a roguelite, there are far more intense and fun arcadey roguelites like Nuclear Throne or Windblown. As an FPS roguelite, great ones include Returnal. FPS with a cyberpunk aesthetic, some other great options include Roboquest and RoboBeat. It's unfortunately not the best in any of its specific categories (in my opinion) but it's not the worst either. It's not a bad game by any means, but it's also not anything saving your breath for if you're expecting a top-end experience.

Don't listen to the haters; this game is a great shooter rougelite, especially with friends. Easily has 50-100+ hours of content, does not deserve the recent flak just because the devs want to continue making new games instead of solely focusing on one.

dont listen to the review bombing of this game. if they can make a much bigger, ambitious, detailed game, rather than glued together dlc for a game thats holding them back, so be it. i cannot wait for the second game!

Not the type to write reviews normally, but I don't appreciate the review bombing, so here I am. It's a rogue-like looter-shooter with some interesting build diversity. For $25 it's a good value for your money. The highlights are the gunplay, unique builds, dark sci-fi atmosphere, and replayability. The runs are relatively short as you would expect. 15 minutes to max 35 minutes for high-difficulty runs. Different game modes like glass cannon, arena, close or long range guns, etc. add even more variety and unlocks. There's a bit of end-game grind if that's your thing. Overall, it's a 7.5 or 8 out of 10, or maybe 9 if you're really into this type of game. The DLC is entirely optional. One is for cosmetics, the other is the soundtrack. Please don't believe the haters complaining about a sequel. The devs explained why they're going for a new game (with a free demo) instead of a DLC, so at least read it first instead of complaining about greed. It's an indie game, not AAA with micro-transactions.

Is it perfect? no. Did I care about any sort of story? no I did not. I did enjoy playing with my friends, looting items, killing enemies, picking perks and items, and leveling up. Other people may have differing opinions, but *I* definitely feel like I got my money's worth of enjoyment out of this game.

Can't recommend this game when they're moving on to another game before this one is finished. There are still clear major bugs and issues with co-op desync and crashing.

Deadzone Rogue is a fps roguelite which got repurposed from their former game an extraction shooter. Nevertheless it's a great game. What makes this game different from any run of the mill rogue lites is the structure. The game is seperated into 4 story chapters. Each story chapter has main missions and side missions. Each mission has 20-30 rooms etc. So if you fail a mission it's not really a biggie because the other missions you already cleared stay that way. There are safe rooms in the run that you occasional run into in a mission in which you can save and quit the game. Pros: *Story is decent(you might hate it if you like elon musk though because they parody him alot/i think they parody pre-maga elon anyhow) *Gunplay is great *Synergies *Quality of life: Saving inside of runs etc. *Pacing *Difficulty: You can choose between difficulties for each mission and get more or less rewards for it. (The game might seem very easy at first but it ramps up) *Challenge side missions are fun: Clear a room within a specific time limit, only use melee weapons etc. *Skill/Perk meta progression *Imbalanced builds are lots of fun. *It has coop (didnt try it though) *Enemy variety is decent. (enemies have different attacks and patterns/look destincitve) Some other games like roboquest dont seem to have such distincitve characterstics as far as i can see) Cons: *Gfx are a little outdated but I personally really didn't mind. Didn't have any performance issues nor crashed. *Weapon skins: You can get weapon skins as rewards and tbh all of them are ugly. All in all a very enjoyable game. 8.5-9/10 (Need to sit on it and digest it a bit more before I give it a final rating, but I'm gonna update this part.

Devs abandoned the game, just like the one before. Cannot in good faith recommend buying anything from these devs if you're expecting long-term support.

This is one of the most fun co-op games I've played in years. Every run feels different. Experimenting with augments, discovering ridiculous synergies, and trying out new builds with friends never got old. The developers absolutely nailed the gameplay loop. Huge respect to the team for creating something that feels genuinely fresh. I've honestly never played another game quite like Deadzone: Rogue. Now I'm just waiting for the sequel. I'll be there on day one.

Good game, took me 26 hours gameplay to finish, full coop so you can play with friends, very stable.