As I started Glitchpunk, a 2021 Steam Early Access release by developer Dark Lord and publisher Daedalic Entertainment, I immediately noticed the cryptic, dark tone of the game with its music, dark backgrounds, and gritty graphics. At the first cutscene, you are awoken by a scientist from a giant company, immediately introducing himself through a series of questions to distinguish if you are a human or an android. Despite attempts to deceive them, you begin as a D-class android and must scrap your way into this harsh, cutthroat world.
Controls and Gameplay:
Once the main world was loaded up, I noticed that the controls are mostly straightforward, such as WASD to move, and click to shoot. It also noticeably was a top-down, third person perspective, allowing the player to see through walls, but not through floors. A world map, as well as a personalization menu are both in the game and are readily available. As a relative newbie to mercenary-type shooter games, I went through the entire town before starting any missions to get used to the controls and take a couple notes on the environment.
Accepting and completing missions from the company allows the player to gain money, upgrade their hero, and allow new items, such as guns or cars, to be acquired through purchases or rewards. Combat is relatively balanced and fun, as dodging and moving through bullets and other enemies are both challenging and fun. Unique to Glitchpunk is the option to move through “hacker mode.” As an android under the company, you are able to glance at stranger’s info and hack through machines, making combat and exploring more interesting and engaging.
Unpolished, yet with Great Potential:
Glitchpunk has a lot of potential in its future. With 4 different areas to explore and many missions, you will be engaged for many hours before finishing this game. Furthermore, the industrial, futuristic vibe alongside the bruteness and shock of the lawlessness and violence of the area makes for great gameplay and potential for a lot of excitement and fun.
However, Glitchpunk is still an Early Access game, and I was met with a lot of bugs and glitches, which prevented me from going through gameplay and made it relatively hard to advance the story. The game frequently froze when tabbing out of the browser, and car movement was frequently glitchy and had the potential of freezing out as well. Furthermore, the lack of an auto save, or manual save button made it so that progress through the story was frequently lost and I had to retry the missions that I already completed again. Additionally, there was quite a bit of lag and bad graphics when running the game for a longer period of time. When these issues are fixed, the potential of this game will go a lot further than as of right now.
I would currently recommend Glitchpunk to fans of the original GTA games as this game has the potential of being a better polished, fun version alike with those games. However, the bugs and glitches right now would make it hard for me to introduce and recommend this game currently to less enthused players that might have not already played through a game like this in the same genre.
Check Out the Glitchpunk Early Access Trailer:
Glitchpunk is available for PC via Steam Early Access.
I started gaming on the PS2 playing 2K and various fighting games, then played a lot of Nintendo Wii games. Currently, I like playing JRPGs as well as platformers and MOBAs. In a video game, I enjoy exploring the intricacies of fighting systems as well as viewing various character developments throughout the story of the game.
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