Although it loses steam after a while, Soulslinger is a fun rogue-like shooter with a great sense of place.
Another rogue-like it may be, but Soulslinger does a lot to try and make itself stand out from the admittedly pretty packed crowd. Being a first-person entry to the genre certainly helps, but a weird-west style rampage through the underworld to take down a soul stealing cartel really does feel unique. Add to that the solid gunplay and excellent art direction, and you’ve got a pretty good starting point. If it could only maintain the fun once the rogue-like repetition sets in then I think we’d be onto something pretty special.
You play an initially nameless man, known only as the Soulslinger, and Envoy of Death himself. After an accident that took the life of your beloved, you find yourself in the underworld and in the employ of the reaper who offers you a deal. If you manage to take down The Cartel, a group of powerful dead who take souls for their power rather than letting them pass on, then Death will return your partner from the beyond. And so you set off into the strange limbo that awaits, to fight off evil spirits in the hopes you can reach the head of this Cartel. (Wait, is this The Crow – Ed.)
There’s more story than you might expect for the genre, but it’s told well enough in impressive in-engine cutscenes that transition directly into gameplay. Through these, you’ll learn more about your character and how he, and others you meet, ended up working for Death. I’ll admit that it is quite surface level from a story perspective, but it’s clear that a fair bit of effort has been put into this side of Soulslinger, and I certainly appreciate that.
When you head out on an expedition, everything presents itself as the Wild West. Narratively, this is because the limbo you explore shapes itself to the mind of the most powerful souls in it, which means that other Envoys of Death will see the world in a different way. Interestingly, this does present the opportunity for the devs to create further games in this universe, with other characters exploring different realms. In real terms though, I think the developers just wanted to create a cool looking Western, and they’ve certainly managed that.
The art direction in Soulslinger is excellent. I loved going into these desolate weird west adjacent places, from standard canyons and streets to demon ravaged farmlands and miasma poisoned townships. Every new location looked impressive and begged to be explored further. Sadly, you’re very much locked into arenas to fight off ghouls and aren’t really free to go and find what’s out there beyond the odd resource or explosive barrel. Regardless, the environments are stunning, and I was impressed at how well the game ran on my increasingly aging PC, rarely dropping below 120 FPS.
This praise extends to the sound design as well. Well put together and impressively thematic music is present throughout, and the sounds of your gunfire are solid and impactful. The voice acting is mostly very good too, with special credit to Death whose distorted voice lines carried a great sense of gravitas.
The gameplay is movement-shooter-style arena FPS fare. You’ll enter an area, enemies will spawn, and you’ll blast your way through them. There’s an array of different enemies, but a lot of them behave in pretty much the same way. Most charge at you or hang back and throw projectiles, so the differences in design don’t make much difference. There are some curveballs here and there, like ones who teleport closer, or use slow moving magic projectiles to catch you out, but you’ll even handle these in much the same way. Kite them around the arena and pick them off.
That isn’t to say that doing so isn’t fun, because it really is, especially early on. You have a small variety of weapons, like pistols, shotguns, and rifles, and you can pick up new ones on your travels that offer bonuses such as poison damage or stunning enemies on reload. They all feel powerful, but also don’t feel all that different. A level one pistol with fire damage doesn’t feel all that different to a level 5 one with poison damage.
If there’s one issue with Souldslinger, it’s that lack of variety. Everything looks quite unique, but when you’re deep into that rogue-like rut of replaying runs through the four main areas, hoping to make it further and gather more resources, you’ll start to feel that sameness creep in more and more. Sure, there are a variety of perks and active abilities to use based on the route you take through your run, but after a while you’ll hunt down the best ones and stick to those.
I will grant that the unlockable abilities you acquire in your home of Haven between runs can add some noticeable power. Permanent buffs like perfectly timed reloads increasing your damage, and new items that make certain elemental damage types more effective are worth investing resources in. These are finite though, and ultimately you’ll end up back on the grind. How much you’ll enjoy Soulslinger will come down to how much you’ll want to go back and do the same thing again. Thankfully, I found the core loop enjoyable enough to keep me going for some time.
Soulslinger is a really quite solid first-person rogue-like that relies on it’s impressive style. Whilst the move, dash, shoot, and reload gameplay is nothing new, the world keeps things interesting for far longer than a lot of other entries into this ever more bloated genre. If you want to try your hand at it first, there’s a demo to at least give you an idea of what you’ll be getting into, and if you like that then the main game provides more of the same, for better or worse. For me, I enjoyed playing it through. But maybe I’m just a sucker for how cool it looks.
Soulslinger is available now on PC.
