After reviewing the terrific Bloodshed, I’d been hankering for another first-person Survivors-like. There sadly aren’t a great many of them despite how much promise the mashup has, but the field just got a little more dense. Hellbreak is entering Early Access today and bringing with it tons of monster shooting, all while racking up countless upgrades. The game is set to stay in Early Access for about a year and add more weapons, enemies, and a new arena. The core gameplay loop holds promise and there’s already hours worth to blast through, but the question stands – is Hellbreak worth it in Early Access?
The setup is simple. You pick one of two currently available arenas, start with naught but a pistol, and find yourself beset upon hordes of monsters that you’re meant to survive as long as possible, all while racking up a high score. Unlike similar games, Hellbreak gives you experience directly upon killing enemies. Once you reach a new level, you’ll be able to pick one of three upgrades that make you more powerful. Eventually bosses show up to put the hurt on you, which can really keep players on their toes. The gameplay gets the job done, as it’s fast and fluid, but I’m not as impressed as I was by Bloodshed, sadly.
The pistol you start out with isn’t all that fun to use, although it does get the job done. It feels like a pea shooter and I can’t help but wish there were characters that started with different, better guns. The fact that you start each and every run in Hellbreak with the exact same loadout means the game can feel more redundant more quickly than its contemporaries. Also, you can only have one gun equipped at once and the upgrades you get don’t tend to lead to you feeling as overpowered as you might expect, resulting in the game feeling more like an arena shooter with Survivors-esque upgrade mechanics, instead of a full-on Survivors-like.
Part of the main appeal of these kinds of games is just getting ridiculously powerful as you chew through large mobs faster and faster. That feeling just isn’t here all that much. Granted, you can get perks that activate automatically, as well as spells and the like, but your shooting abilities are going to be what makes or breaks your runs in the end. To Hellbreak‘s credit, there’s a fair amount of goals to accomplish. As you play, you’ll unlock missions that reward you with new weapons, upgrades, and perks. There are multiple sets of missions and you’ll need to complete many of them in a specific order, which leads to you going into runs with a specific goal in mind.
You’ll get currency from playing that you can use to purchase permanent perks (such as extra health and damage,) plus you can upgrade your guns too, which makes a noticeable difference. Initially, there’s just a single map available, but it doesn’t take long to unlock the second one. Granted, that means that there are just two maps, and with seemingly only one more on the way, that will probably lead to some serious repetition after a handful of hours. That being said, buying perks and upgrading guns will take a fair amount of time. Not to mention Hellbreak is pretty difficult, so players of average skill won’t likely find themselves tearing through the game with ease.
Even if they do, there are multiple difficulty levels to unlock as well, so there’s potential for a decent amount of content here, despite the lower variety of maps and enemies on display. All-in-all, Hellbreak is a decent time that doesn’t scratch the Survivors-like itch as I wanted it to. The art direction is bland too, with generic areas and enemies that look like low-end Doom monsters and the performance can be kind of abysmal when there are many enemies on screen. As for whether the game is worth it in Early Access, there’s certainly enough content overall, but the game likely won’t blow anyone away. Unless they’re a knock-off Doom demon.
