Developed by Dream Powered Games and published by Focus Entertainment, Warstride Challenges is an speedrunning action game where the player navigates a series of labyrinthine levels, demolishing demons on the way in order to escape through the exit. In this game, movement and quick aim are the key to go, as the player needs to kill every enemy for the finish line exit to appear. But better make that quick, as your score is determined on how fast you beat a level.
The game is a tad rough getting started, as a new player will have difficulty understanding the key mechanic of the game, that being bunny-hopping, where the player crouches and jumps at the same time to maximize their speed. But once that player truly understands how to operate that mechanic, the game becomes more of a flow-state, with the player being able to navigate surprisingly easy given how difficult it looks. The developers did a fantastic job making something as intimidating as speedrunning, and turned it into a game that speedrunning noobs can accomplish.
Throughout the levels, which look stunning with Unreal Engine 5, the player will need to dispatch enemies quickly and efficiently, which is where the game’s arsenal comes in. Use the pistol for quick shots on weak enemies, the shotgun for tight corners and close quarters combat, and the rifle for long-shots and headshots. To aid with the aiming, the player is also given slow-motion to activate for a set duration each level, allowing them to take sharper corners and to line up shots without losing as much speed or time otherwise, keeping the players in a constant dopamine high of pure carnage and speed.
What brings this all together is how Warstride Challenges handles the competitive scene. Players compete with their times on the global leaderboard, making tracking level speedruns a breeze. If you are seeking to inch out a few seconds of improvement against a certain player who keeps beating you, you can actually enter their username into the nemesis system, which will generate their ghost, a recorded record of their performance on a given level, and play it out alongside you as you attempt it. It’s a great tool that gives you insight on how to complete a specific level faster, or to make sure you are keeping pace against a rival.
However, while the speedrunning and the carnage might be fun for some, it could be an issue with some others. For example, the game is lacking in one specific department, that being the story. There isn’t one really, with the main goal of the game being just to navigate through levels as fast as possible. This is disappointing as the game has a lot of great mechanics, but without a story to hold it together, some might get the impression of a tech demo more so than a proper game.
All in all, Warstride Challenges does a fantastic job at creating a game that champions a pure adrenaline-fueled slaughterfest for speedrunners to enjoy. The game comes with a ton of levels, each of them having varying difficulties with varying enemies, mechanics, and weapons for you to learn. This doesn’t even include all of the secret levels and the Big, Fun Levels (or B.F.L.s for short), which stitch together several smaller levels into a giant, sprawling level as an ultimate test of skill. If you are a fan of speedrunning or First-Person Shooters, then this game is the one for you.
SCORE: 8/10
Warstride Challenges is available for PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Matthew White
An avid gamer, Matthew is also an aspiring game developer. Because of this, Matthew knows not only what makes a game great, but also the hard work and artistry required to craft such a phenomenal experience.
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