Picture this: It's the last day of Gamescom, I've had a max of 20 hours of sleep over the last five days, my feet are about to fall off from walking 16,000 steps every day, and my mental stability has been shattered from playing Resident Evil Requiem first thing in the morning, I'm at a low and in serious need of a win.
After a few more steps and a stodgy lunch, I wander into the Ubisoft booth ready to play an upcoming hack 'n' slash roguelike that I've not heard of before but that still looks seriously cool. I've played through a few hack 'n' slash games before—I even played part of Ghostrunner 2 at the last Gamescom I went to—so I was prepared for what was to come, or at least I thought I was.
Morbid Metal is like any other roguelike in that if you die during a run, you need to start again, facing new semi-procedurally generated levels each time. Set in a world where cybernetics and nature intertwine, you take the role of a few cybernetic ninjas fighting to uncover the origins of the mysterious world in which you find yourself. You progress through stunning levels first shrouded in cherry blossoms, traditional pagodas, and what seems to be old technological artefacts left to deteriorate in the rain.
There's not much of a story, or at least not one that stood out to me during the preview, apart from a huge god-like robot that towers over your home base, who also occasionally hypes you up mid-run. But that didn't really matter because of just how fun the action and platforming were.
Any expectation I had for Morbid Metal was blown out of the water within the first five minutes. Somehow, the controls just clicked in my head, and I was pulling off movesets that I had first thought would take some serious thought and practice to get right. This meant I was able to dive headfirst into the runs, hacking apart enemies and parkouring across the map like it was nobody's business.
Every fight I encountered was wholly engaging in part because of the varied enemy types, which each present a different issue. There's the flying drone dropping pulse bombs if you leave them be for too long, or the heavies, which use their shields to block your attacks. But the real cherry on top was getting access to different characters, their fighting styles, combos, and counter options.
You see, you don't play as just one character in Morbid Metal. While you start as an agile nano-blade-wielding Flux, the further you progress through the levels, the more characters you can unlock. But instead of sending these guys back to your base to wait until you return from a run to try out their skills and abilities, you can switch into them at any point during a run. You can have a team of up to four characters, each with their own skills and flaws.
I only managed to access Flux and Ekko during the preview, but even having the ability to change into two characters on the fly was a game-changer for me. While Flux was a lot more agile, easily taking out airborne enemies and dodging attacks from grunts, Ekko is a tank, a heavy hitter who can take a punch.
Each character has an attack, two abilities, and an ultimate. For example, Flux can fire projectile slashes and has an ultimate that will deal a flurry of cuts to an enemy in a matter of seconds, usually killing them outright. While Ekko has an ability which drags enemies into his giant sword when he swings it, and has an ultimate that can damage multiple enemies that are close together in one fell swoop. All of these abilities can be enacted in quick succession to perform combos and up your style rating, and you can also mix and match abilities from different characters to perform even better combos.
I would zip towards enemies in the sky as Flux and perform a slash attack, and then turn into Ekko to use his ground slam ability to send the enemy hurtling towards the floor. It all works so seamlessly, you don't have to think too hard about what you want to do—you just go with the flow and it all works out.
I have no issue with finicky games, mastering complicated movesets, and platforming provides a high like no other. But in times when all I seem to play does my head in, simple yet awesome games like Morbid Metal provide a much-appreciated break and breath of fresh air.
