Morbid Metal, the new hack’n’slash action rogue-lite from developers SCREEN JUICE and published by Ubisoft, is a ton of fun. The action is fast and furious, where swapping between characters is instantaneous and integral. Cutting through groups of enemies is engaging and a blast, but in early access, it’s the best part in an otherwise middling package. Morbid Metal clearly has potential, even if some of it feels repetitive.
Morbid Metal casts you as Flux at the beginning, the last AI created by an Operator you don’t know much about. Your mission is simple: destroy the other AI and transcend mankind. The story itself isn’t too much of anything so far. Most of the story comes through lore documents you find in the environment, readable in the index in the hub. It’s an interesting overall setup, but it’s too early to tell how the story develops.
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The hub, known as the Void, is where things kick off. It holds the meta progression systems and overall unlockables, along with lore and training areas. The three main shops, where you buy and unlock upgrades, light up orange when you have enough currency to buy something. Once you’re ready, you dive into another run.
Morbid Metal features a light story, with most of it fleshed out through documents found.
The first biome, known as the Sublime Garden, kicks things off strong. It’s beautiful and otherworldly, a fractured space with drooping trees and temples. You’ll run through spaces, taking out enemies in combat arenas as you go. The spaces so far have been fairly straightforward, with some minor platforming challenges. The focus here is clearly the fights. The second biome switches things up with a dilapidated city.
Morbid Metal packs a punch with its combat, a whirlwind of swords, dodges, and abilities. Flux is fast, quickly cutting through enemies with their base attacks. Their special attacks that you start with give you a powerful cut and one that sends blade shockwaves out to damage at a distance. You can find and replace these with new abilities found in the environment, making each run feel a bit different.
As you explore, you find new characters to shapeshift into mid-combat. The first biome unlocks Ekku, boasting a much bigger, but slower, sword. Ekku is much heavier than Flux, but shapeshifting between them is instant. It’s so satisfying to mix in their abilities and manage cooldowns by swapping. Jumping up with Flux to deal some aerial damage, then shifting to Ekku to slam enemies down to the ground, before switching back to Flux to wail on them even more, is always satisfying. Vekta, which unlocks in the second biome, is a more ranged fighter.
The combat packs a punch, making this portion of the gameplay fun and exciting.
The variation on these abilities, so far, has been limited. The early game features the same handful of variations over and over. This was made even more frustrating when you entered some of the challenge spaces, where you needed to complete specific objectives. Whether it’s beating the enemies fast enough or switching between characters every 5 seconds, the challenges themselves are fun twists on combat.
The issues are in the rewards economy, where you can end up with the same abilities you just dumped a few minutes prior. Morbid Metal doesn’t have a sell system like some of its contemporaries, so it ends up being useless. Being able to sell them instantly for a bit of credits would help alleviate these issues quickly, so hopefully it gets added later on.
Moving through these spaces is fast and fluid, even if it starts to feel too similar. The enemy variety is low, with only a few enemy types and areas. With Morbid Metal being a roguelite, it’s noticeable going up against the same enemies in the same spaces over and over. The combat is always fun, but it starts to feel routine when the challenges are the same. Take out the flying enemies first, then the enemies, and finally focus on the heavies. It settles into a rhythm too quickly and needs more enemy variety to change up the approach.
The rewards economy needs some work, with its current mechanism rendering some purchases redundant.
Exploration is another sore spot, as there are some things to find in the environment, but it’s not much. A lack of a mini map is also frustrating, as it’s not always immediately clear where you can go or where you came from. Some spaces are also just long runs to get to a challenge or objective without any real platforming or puzzles, just sprints that start to feel too lengthy.
The upgrade systems are substantial, though. Back at the hub, there are plenty of ways to spend your hard-earned currency. From new attacks to modifiers that can change what resources you have available to you in a run to modifiers for combat itself, there are a lot of ways to build craft and make runs faster and more efficient. The upgrade cadence is solid so far as well; I was able to unlock at least something on most runs.
In the grand scheme of Morbid Metal, these issues may fade away with more upgrades, enemies, and biomes. The combat is easily the highlight here; even though the world around it needs work, the action is smooth and electric. Each fight is a blast, shapeshifting is a fantastic, fluid mechanic that elevates combat, and the abilities are fun to use. Morbid Metal has a lot of potential; hopefully, it can capitalize on it.
