Spacelords

Good God!
LAST PLAYED
Jan 27, 2018
3.5 hours.
Been 4 yeeeeears!!!

Though changed title from Raiders of Broken Planet to Spacelords.
Out be loved devs are still there.
And that is a credit.
I had some vague memory that the mechanism & graphic was nice & British-accented characters being attractive.
Though game it self was at demo level still felt impressive.
Lemme check what you have updated since i last played you like.
Or some one tell me if I should keep waiting for another 4 years.

My feelings on this game are mixed. I had some difficulty getting into it, but it got its teeth in enough for keep me going up until I was hit with too heavy a grind and a disappointing fourth campaign (Council Apocalypse). Having reinstalled it recently, I find some things have changed. The grind's gotten a little better, the new characters and their lore are interesting, and one of the new gameplay mechanics is interesting, but the rest is still a mixed bag for better or worse.

If you're looking to make an interesting new (third person) shooter or looking for stuff to steal in your own fictional universes and stories, I can still suggest this game for you, as it's got stuff worth putting it on the dissection table for.
For the designer:
- I can't think of any other games that play with cover and aggro this smoothly, or mix gun and melee combat the way this does.
- The system of aleph charges and how the enemy can make use of them provided interesting challenges and a neat little array of risks and rewards.
- Some characters have abilities I don't see anywhere else but want to.
- There's a wide variety of guns to review and many of them are worth studying for future games.
- To quote a friend, "every level feels like a raid," and there's some good use of mechanics in most of them.
Some aspects have been done better, such as the control styles where you need to aim your gun before you can shoot with it, but there's still stuff to be iterated on!
For the writer, you could probably find most of your stuff by just finding a place that posted up all the lore pages for your perusal, but here's some stuff I love about the game's writing overall:
- If you want some material for an anti-hero, there's plenty of raiders to steal ideas from.
- Some are cyborgs who were fully weaponized for a time but are reconnecting with their own humanity (or exploring things considered too human by their creators for the first time)
- They all got multiple pages of backstory. (Note: there's also some backstory in all of their costumes)
- Mission accept screens have little blurbs from the character known as Harec, serving as a short briefing and a look into his thoughts on how humanity is affecting the planet he calls home.
- In-mission cutscene conversations can differ greatly because of how a player character will say something compared to what an NPC is guaranteed to say.
- There's quite a sum of history for both the broken planet and the factions fighting upon it.
- Did I mention there's a space demon?
- While the locals are close to humans in appearance, it would not be hard to make a venn diagram about these two species.
- Aleph has a very fun relationship to time, space, living material, and everyone using it.
There's also comics and stuff on the game's site that are hopefully still available!

If it weren't for:
- The Council Apocalypse campaign.
- The leveling system being tied to the new forge system.
- The ability to unlock certain characters is also tied to the leveling system, and one character has a limit in the 60s.
- The fact the new forge system had gun upgrading, so a higher level player is almost certainly better armed than you. They may have even gotten the gun for cheaper if they used the mod system right.
- How your mission rewards are determined by a rating system at the end of the game with some bonuses for if a gun has the right trait or if a player DCs and doesn't come back.
- How the antagonist system can lead to trying to finish a mission with a high payout only to get your shit stomped into the dust by somebody who can wipe your team in a matter of seconds and then taunt your ass for seconds after the mission's finished and you have to wait for them to do before being told how poorly the mission went and then receiving the pay.
- The post-mission takes a lot of time.
- How you can still turn the premium currency into one of the most important resources in the game. It may be easier to get gold but the level system is one of the few things denying you from a full pay to win experience.
- How much premium currency many of the cosmetics cost is still rather high (which is often less, especially in bundles, but still an eye raiser in many cases).
- Lack of communication methods (which improved after I first uninstalled but only enough for you to have a radial menu to declare which objectives you're trying to do or giving orders for people to do certain objectives if you get chosen as mission leader).
I'd have probably given this game a "yes" recommendation, with a caveat.
That caveat being that the game is no longer being supported by the devs outside of keeping the servers running, keeping track of "Guild Clashes" and other timed reward things, and maybe making a new costume for one of the characters. Admittedly that's more support than some other games I love and still occasionally play, but I think that still makes the game dead by many people's standards.

If you still want to play it, it's free enough for you to get the prologue, one of the campaigns, and about four characters (I think they removed the free character per campaign thing during one of the big economy updates). You'll want some guides because the tutorial doesn't cover all you'll want to know (like character faction differences), and if the game gives you the Council Apocalypse campaign be warned that most of it us just a lot of enemies and energy attacks inside of circular arenas. If you don't wanna single-player the whole thing, there should be enough players around for you to find a match if you're patient enough and not picky with your mission choices. You may even get to fight an antagonist too, who will hopefully not be the sort to go in with victory in their mind because they'll probably kick your teeth in.

If I've talked you out of playing, but you're still interested in some stuff about it, then I hope that you watch some gameplay and/or cutscenes online, read the lore and comics and other stories if they're still available on the main site, and find any traces of the soundtrack that are still around. Noting that that it used to be called "Raiders of the Broken Planet" may help in your search.

SpaceLords is a third-person hero-shooter with a fun loot and customization system. Four "Raiders" in a premade or matchmade party will attempt a mission. Raiders share a limited pool of lives, and fail the mission of they run out of lives. Also, a fifth player can join as an "Antagonist" to oppose the four Raiders. The Antagonist is (statistically) no different than other players, but can also command the enemy AI to target players or protect objectives. Also, the Antagonist doesn't have limited lives. At the end of the mission, each player will be given loot depending on how well they did during the mission. This loot can be used to buy new weapons, upgrades, or characters. With all that said, let's get into the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:
Wide cast of interesting characters both in game-play and in lore.
Many levels with unique map design and objectives (More on this later).
Each character has several unlockable weapons and an actually useful customization system for each one.
A well designed and enjoyable aesthetic.
Fun game-play loop and fluid combat (More on this later)

The Bad:
There are a few bugs, though it's nothing game-breaking.
Balancing is a bit wack on a few weapons.
Matchmaking is wonky and not always fair.
Some characters are level-locked for no apparent reason.

The Ugly:
4v1 Raiders vs Antagonist system is fun, but can be frustrating at times for either side.
Melee combat is fun and always being improved, but it doesn't always function as it should.
Loot system is well done, but a bit slow in general.
Missions usually boil down to "collect aleph and shove into thing" but always have some way of making it interesting.

TL;DR 4v1+AI hero-shooter with lots of interesting missions, characters and guns with a cool melee combat system.
4/5, would recommend.

Spacelords as a concept is a very interesting game. You have interesting characters, good animations, good voice acting, etc. This game has the makings of everything it takes to make a good game. Unfortunately Mercury Steam made the terrible decision to have forced PVP in a PVE game with no way to turn it off. What could have been a good game is plagued by the most inept attempts at fundamental video game design, again from forced PVP, to having no in game chat option to communicate with your team. This game brings the fun relaxation of an online coop game, but swiftly ruins it with a PVP system that is flawed in almost every single way. Being able to invade a mission as an antagonist and picking on players who just picked up the game and have no real chance at going toe to toe with a Spacelords veteran is a real good way to cut the head off of any future gamer prospects. The mode needs to either be optional, or removed entirely. I would give this game a positive review if it looked like the developers were making any real effort to fix the ongoing issues with this game, but I don't think they will. If you have gone this long without playing Raiders of The Broken Planet, than you can afford to never play Spacelords.

The game has come a long way since it originally launched as a weird episodic title, where the first episode was free, but only one stage, giving people the impression it was a free-to-play game as it ended up being listed as one, despite not being one at the time. This was shot in the foot #1, but they relaunched as F2P, so they're improving. I'd say the largest negative at the moment for myself (and others from the sound of it too) is the antagonist system. The way that works is you'll queue as either a Raider, an Antagonist, or both. If you play as a Raider, you select your character with your teammates before hopping into the match. You may or may not have an Antagonist. An Antagonist is a player that is friendly aligned with the AI enemies, and is taked with killing all of the Raiders once they have run out of lives. The balance in this system is garbage at best, it very rarely feels balanced. You'll often end up with an Antagonist that is at such a greater skill level than your team that there's no real point in even trying (plus, if they're a higher level they do more damage than you do). Other times, you'll get matched with one who is very clearly brand new to the game, and they get completely stomped. I feel like this is still one of the continuing largest points of failure in the game. It's a cool idea, but the way it is currently implemented does not work, and the sooner Mercury Steam is willing to admit that and either remove it or balance it, the sooner I feel the game could actually grow in popularity. I feel the Antagonist system should be stripped and replaced with a separate PVP mode. The game already reminds me a lot of Anarchy Reigns, and a bit (in some ways) of Power Stone, and I think they could easily get a proper PVP mode working relatively easily. All the mechanics for cool modes are here, and it would be so much more enjoyable than PVP in the form of Antagonists.

tl;dr
The game is fun and has a ton of visual polish. There isn't much like it out there, and the dev had been making some good strides in improving things, despite a few (though fairly large) issues (like Antagonist balancing).

it could have been so good.

I have not given up yet. I think that true genius lurks somewhere in Mercury Steam. If this games visuals were representative of it universal quality, it would be a slam dunk.

I do wish they would have handled it differently... perhaps a solid single player campaign, for $20, and then monetize the multiplayer differently with certain unlocks that could only be earned in single player.

I was die hard fan of both castlevania games and I firmly believe that MS has it where it counts.... clearly then game engine here is of a higher quality that many found in other games, art style, design choices, all very good. Truthfully, they would have garned far more money out of me with a more normal pricing structure... A free demo, perhaps, maybe a few free MP weekends.,,, I am no expert.

I hope the game survives, and I will hopefully be able to buy the 4th campaign DLC at full price to show my appreciation, but for now, they have only made about a dollar off me, and that kinda sucks. They deserve better. I had hope to buy the campaigns on sale, but I am not stupid enough to turn down the free weekend off. (would have likely bought at 50%)

I think they got a raw deal with LOS2, which is one of the most underrated games of all time, IMO.

I am cheering you on Mercury Steam, I hope things turn around for you.

Update: Don't get me wrong, this game plays like a dream. Normally, I am not terribly fond of 3rd person games with KB and Mouse, but it works well here. (Likely refine my mouse profile this evening, and more than likely make a Steam Controller profile.)

The gunplay and Melee are both satisfying, even as a beginner. Looking forward to delving farther into the game.

If I had the ability to disable antag, and play with only 2 or just 1 other friend and be able to start the match on pressing play, I'd reccomend it immediately.

Edit: It's been a year and the developers seem incredibly resistant to add features to game that would allow to make your own lobby for whatever reason.

This game is NOT free. NOT Playable enough. Even If you pay $60 for "Ultimate Edition", you will need $100~$300 for play as locked characters.
I can't understand why DEV teams sets the cost for unlock as much high, Some reviews says "insane" about that.
Needs unbelievable in-game cash means "Pay real money much more". DEVs says get more rewards in multiplayer, but Where is online players? If that connects successfully, rewards are very low still.
"Characters&Stories"? It doesn't make a sense to me. If people need that, Pay for many other nice games.
Only message I received is "Pay insane real money". I think "Not free to play" is usual way, But It's evil.

If you like 3rd person hero shooters you will like this game. I have been dying for a good PvE shooter experience with fun campaign objectives, especially in this new era of PvP games with no campaign modes.

Gameplay wise it's a mix of Warframe, Gears of War and Hero Shooters (Overwatch, Team Fortress, Battleborn, etc...). Stylistically it's a mix of Boderlands, Mad Max, Cyberpunk, and Gorillaz with a sprinkling of many other things. I have to say this is my favorite part, the character designs and personalities are really strong and fun. If you like group PvE experience you will love this game.

The only two bad things I have to say, however i the microtransactions are a bit expensive. I understand that they are an indie company and need something to carry the game forward, but some of the Raiders, Ginebra and HIVE in particular are incredibly expensive. That being said, they give you a lot to play with for free, you don't NEED any of the other things to compete in the game. And secondly, the difficulty increases as you gain levels automatically. I wish players had more control over their difficulty level, I don't like being forced to harder levels, especially when player level =/= skill, it's based on the items you acquire in the game.

Edit: I kept the old review up as a reference point. I feel many of the things I said are sill true but I can't recommend this game any more because it has a terrible MMR system and has forced PvP. I love playing the PvE as a raider, but when an antag comes along and stops your progression in a game that is ALREADY stingy with its rewards (especially the weapon parts) if feels like a complete waste of time if not a total loss and regression of time. Until they have optional PvP, I can't recommend this game.

Definitely has one of the best fine tuned gameplay that you had seen in the decade I'm not joking.
It is made by a small indie Spanish studio and just look at the quality of the engine, its outstanding!
It has its problems mostly due to the scope of the project and the size of the team but for 0 bucks you get
hours and hours of GAMEPLAY, GREAT cutscenes and lore, NO lootbooxes. You'll definitely buy all the campaings.

It's punishing. Is the Dark Souls of 3rd person shooters one mistake and you are dead but is so rewarding. You need to train get familiar with the rythm and mechanics as well as with each mission.
Simply put is Gears of war X Quake. Yeah it sounds like you need it in your life.

Give it a chance, grab the free version and ask me or other raides to invite you, there is an invitation system and will gladly invite you and explain the intricacies of the gameplay and help you agains the dreaded antagonist.

Sorry for bad eng.
Well what i can say. This game is pretty cool. Before actual review i want to say 1 thing
THIS IS NOT A F2P GAME. For free you download a demo version (tutorial and 1 full mission)
Actuall game is separated in 4 compaigns that you can buy separatly or together with founder pack(also you get 3 characters for free)
Dev already Released 1 compaign and 2 of 3 bonus characters
And now review.
Raiders of the Broken Planet(ROBP)
Is a 3rd person mission bassed shooter/brawler with aditional 4vs1 mechanic
You can play it online or solo.
+Good story
+Good characters (Both in terms of gameplay and story)
+Intresting gameplay
+Art style
+Lore of the game is fantastic
+-Soundtrack(kinda cool but repetative)
+-Microtransactions in Fullpriced game. This ising bothering me but it can be a problem for people.
-Antogonist mode-Antogonis mode is a cool feature basicaly it is simmilar to dark souls invasions. Player can invade mission of Raiders (players). Problem that this mode is highly imbalanced. Usually it is Harder to win playing as Antogonist.
-Reward system this is bigest problem of this game(but devs said that they will fix this i belive them)
So after you win as Antogonist you gains speciall resours called stigmas. And you need it to unlock new guns for raiders and lore(Game have a cool lore) Problem that you need to WIN as antogonis to get new guns and learn Lore and as i said it is hard to win as Antogonis. Also this means that if you dont like pvp like me you will have problem with upgrading your character.

The Developer has definitely a lot of thinks to do until this hell of a game run‘s under good conditions. The matchmaking did not work at first, which means if someone left‘s the group you‘ll be on your own till the end of the round (this happens all day long, the game runs unstable or freezes a lot). Next biggest frustration point is the reward system this system sucks like farting while you sneeze. Next is the level design which don’t work every time, means if you play Alicia in MP Prologue you can’t use your double jump right & stuck every time. Last thing that really sucks is that in fights get disturbed by other players so you get damaged for nothing or lose ammo. There are definitely a lot of thinks to do but i hope you‘ll make it 😄

This game is not a MOBA (DOTA2) or a Team-Based Character Shooter (Overwatch) or a Twitch-Based Shooter (CoD). But it blends elements from all those.

Looking at the system requirements and the year, I gotta say this game looks good and gets the job done. Cutscenes are orchestrated tastefully with expressive characters, shakey hand-cam, and jump-cuts to show players the characters' personalities. It makes me think of Borderlands mixed up with some Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. The game does a good job with the show-not-tell philosophy as well.

But if you don't want the story or fluff, sometimes it can feel like an inconvenience to watch the cutscenes because one person in the party doesn't want to skip it. You can't just jump into a game real quick. The plot also requires watching the cutscenes multiple times to understand the character dynamics. I like to think of it as Pulp Fiction-esque. Lots of little details packed into tiny scenes. However you also have to purchase lore rank up and to get a fuller picture of the story.

You have 3 main resources. GOLD, FACTION points, and CHARACTER points. Gold is used to buy weapons, lore, and lock in skill cards (more on this in a sec). Faction points are a pool spread amonst characters of the same faction. Character points are specific to each character. Both Faction and Character points are used to unlock skill-cards. You have 2 decks: a Faction and a Character deck. You can only equip one card into your loadout from each of these decks (so 2 cards basically). After you unlock all skill-card slots, you can pay a flat-rate to reshuffle all your cards back into the deck and try to redraw for rare or more useful cards. This is where locking in your cards comes into play. As of now, it costs 25,000 gold (about 5 games) to lock in a card. That card won't be reshuffled into the deck so you won't destroy a loadout doing so.

Each character also has a weapon blueprint which is a random drop after a specific mission (as in each mission only drops certain weapons, and you might not get the chance to win a weapon). The thing is, there is only 1 pool of each reward and you can only choose a single pool. So 5000 FP, 5000 CP, and 5000 G between 4 characters. Two people are going to get shafted. If a gun shows up, then one person can pick the gun and it evens out. But if more than one person wants the gun, a roulette wheel spins and awards a random player. If you try to win the gun and fail, you earn nothing from the mission.

Cards have 2 major parts. Normal and Overcharged. Overcharged happens during a mission when a player collects 5 Aleph. One card might give you 90 Health after a melee kill normally but 220 extra if you have 5 Aleph. More on Aleph in the next section.

Characters have differing weapons, health, and abilities. Each character's ability is unique to them (hurp durp) but don't feel like rehashes of old ideas. You got a Jetpack guy, a guy who repels everyone away from him (and off cliffs), a chick who double-jump floats while raining shotgun shells down, another chick who doesn't need to aim but rather keep line-of-sight, etc. And the different guns and cards you combine can change up that playstyle. No one gun is better or worse than any other INHERANTLY. They have easier or more difficult playstyles to give players more options to make each character their own.

A mission breaks down like this. INTRO CUTSCENE, ESTABLISHING SHOT, MISSION STARTS ==> You now have an arena to complete a certain object in. During this time, you will see 3 distinct kinds of enemies. Normal Gun Grunt, Special Grunt, and Aleph Whore Grunt. Each of these enemies are also distinct because of the different factions they represent. Wardogs have shotgunners for Normal Grunt, Aleph Sponges for Special Grunt, and "Now I'm Invincible for 10 seconds and have murdered you" for their Aleph Whore. Stage hazards are activated or manipulated by Special Grunts. Engineers will turn on defense systems or stop Cortez from hacking ship functions, Aleph Sponges will go up to a resource and absorb all the aleph before escaping, etc.

After completing an arena, there's usually a Left 4 Dead-esque "EVERYONE GET OVER HERE NOW" moment where you gotta hold out while a timer ticks down. You might be crammed into an elevator with shotgunning wardogs charging you, or running up a spiral platform while Aleph Whores one-shot you. Simple and dull when said, but fun if you enjoy objective based games.

There are also boss fights that can be experienced (1 map is litterally 2 boss fights in a row). Finally there are Aleph based objectives. Okay, here's some meat and potatoes $#!t for you. 5 Aleph makes you Overcharged. However the only way to get Aleph is to Melee beat an Aleph Whore. You also need to spend aleph to complete objectives. So your group needs to maintain a dynamic on what is most important, trying to live while farming Aleph or trying to complete the objective as quickly as possible to max out end of mission returns. If you die via melee and have aleph, it goes to whatever melee'd you to death, possibly overcharging them (because it adds to their own pool of aleph). If you die via projectile, you do a crazy-ass explosion that will totally screw over all your teammates at the "EVERYONE GET OVER HERE NOW" zone.

As your character completes actions, they have an Aleph gauge that fills. When it crosses the little character paperdoll, everyone can see your character through walls. So you want to try to keep this bar down to get the jump on the bad guys. Bad guys have 4 stages of awareness:

* Yellow Outline -- just farting around, oblivious to the world
* Yellow Solid -- investigating something MGS style
* Red Outline -- aware of you but currently doing something else
* Red Solid -- currently trying to murder you

This all plays into Melee as well.

Melee is broken into 3 moves: The Dodge, The Bash, and The Grapple. It's rock paper scissors with some nuances.

Grapple is a delayed 1 hit kill. It makes a distinct noise, a red burst of energy shoots out, and if the target doesn't Bash, they get de-spined. You cannot dodge a Grapple. If two people Grapple, it is whoever pivots to the other first (usually whoever pushed Grapple first or have a more direct path to the opponite).

Bash is a near instant smack to the face that deals damage. It takes between "some" to "a lot" of hits to kill someone using Bash. You can Bash someone before they Grapple you. You can Dodge someone trying to Bash you.

Dodge is just some flip or roll your guy does to put distance between you and the enemy. If you Dodge near an opponite who can Grapple, yer gone. If you go in a solid direction for a bit, you begin to sprint. Dodging while sprinting makes you slide.

So if your opponite doesn't know you are there, you can grapple them pretty easily. But if they are paying attention, they can start bashing you.

When getting your face bashed in, you got 3 options. Mash your own Bash button and hope they try to Grapple. Initiate a Grapple and hope they Dodge (for some stupid reason), or Dodge and hope to god they didn't predict that and initiate a Grapple.

So the game kinda turns into figuring out each player's playstyle and tactics, then adapting to them. One guy will be all about getting close and grappling, another guy will Bash once and then immediately grapple (cuz yer gonna dodge, right?). People whine about the 1 hit kills but that's because they don't play with Stealth or their character's powers.

Overall, gameplay is diverse and follows a tried and true formula. It gave me the same feelings I had when playing Left 4 Dead 1 when it first released. Playing with a few friends and few random folks, no real voicechat, teamwork was essential. When things clicked, it felt so satisfying. And when things fell apart, you grew frusturated and raged. Dude... this game feels like Left 4 Dead in terms of teamwork.

Oh, and sometimes another player can jump in to wreck yer shi-

If you're looking for a game like Tom's Clansy The Division or Ghost Reacon Wild Lands that you have to have and need and will have to play with 4 other players in order to achieve or unlock what you like, then yes this is your dream game for me worth the price, you'll get 4 adventure plus the Raiders. But, pay attention here. If you do not have a huge network of gamers friends (like me) don't even try it really. You have 4 dificulties, easy, medium, hard, and very hard. For you to costumize your weapon, skins ect you need to earn in game money which you earn depends of the dificulty you play just once, if you play the same mission again you wont earn anything unless you escalate the dificulty. In easy and medium is a cake, you'll get that little money easy, hard and very hard you're very screwed because it is impossible without a team so this is my review. I can't recommend this game because it is not playable as a single player. My message to the developer is please stop forcing the gamers to play in teams in order to achieve, unlock and collect everything in the games, team playing should be optional. I would pay full price for this game if it's playable single player as well.

Update:

The game's overhaul has added a better progression system and customization system. However, none of my main gripes have been addressed. The antagonist system is not fun: Missions are challenging enough without having someone troll your game. Nearly all rewards are unavailable for solo play, meaning you cannot play at your own pace or on your own terms. This would otherwise be a great game, and I wish I could recommend it in its current state.

Raiders of the Broken Planet is a promising sci-fi cover shooter

• Distinctive and interesting art style.
  
  
• Solid shooting and mechanics that reward tactical and careful play.
  
  
• Diverse, multi-phase mission designs.
  
  
• Solo or co-op play available.
  

• Rewards for solo play are tiny compared to co-op play. But co-op is plauged by low-pings, disconnections, and "Antagonists". See next bullet.
  
  
• The game rewards players for trolling your co-op game as "Antagonists". This is analogous to invasions in Dark Souls, but Dark Souls allows nearly identical rewards for offline solo players. Raiders of the Broken planet makes most rewards wholly unavailable unless you expose yourself to Antagonists.
  
  
[*]The game assumes you will repeatedly play the same missions, but requires that you manually skip multiple cutscenes every time. And skipping cutscenes still forces you to watch the first 5 to 10 seconds.

I don't see why people are complaining about the game, it's 40$ for the entire thing and for the amount of content in it, I think it's entirely worth it. Each character you can play as has different abilities/weapons making each one unique and having your team always be different each time you play. Not to mention play against with the antagonist mode. For those complaining about "Oh it's listed as free but you still gotta buy to play the rest." What in the world is wrong with trying the game to see if you like it, before buying it? Some people need to grow up.

Pros:

Nice and challenging game. Fast paced and tactical because of the deadly melee actions and the cover and stealth system.

Each mission is completely different from the last one. Entertaining Boss battles and each character feels really different from each other, plus each weapon can change their playstyle. The weapons are not a copy from the others with different stats, they have different gameplay.


Cons:

Hard and frustrating game when you don't know how to play at close distance. It helps to understand and use each character's ability. Not your typical shooter. It would help a better tutorial.

There can be long queues sometimes, but they are working better each day.


Try the prologue that is free, more like a demo. If you like it, you can buy the first campaing to add more missions, really worth and cheap. I paid 50€ or more for worse games than this one. The campaign cost only 9.99€/$.

Short Version:
Give the Free Prolouge a try, you'll either like it or you wont. A mixed mechanics from multiple 3rd person shooters with added new/unique aspects. A breath of fresh air in my honest opinion when all shooters now are fps and or "mobas". Simple but effective character kits that get the job done, if you know how to play em but at the same time says this is this character and what they can do, but more then just run and gun.

Long Version:
they're are several things to point out about this game-
1) The free part of the game is the prolouge (as stated on the store page), not a demo, all items currency and other objects are retained and accesable after purchase of at least one campaign

2) This is is raiders of a broken planet not (insert game name here), so dont tell people to go play said game instead, you could compare this game to others of course, but fanboy/girling about a diffrent game is not helpful to reviewing and aiding in others possibly joining the game.

3) Both the prolouge and the first campaign are just part of the game are just part of the game there is more to come

4) Need to pay attention to mechanics on missions not everything is just kill with a gun, several missions have parts where you need to execute a certain mechanic such as collecting aleph via melee kills one certain enemies to activate an obeject, failing to do so could not only prolonge the match but cause an antagonist and or npc's the chance to overwhelm the party. also every character uses stamina a lil didfently so learn your character. another item to know is the ability to respawn is recharged after hitting 0 if you hold out for the npc to get more aleph so dont leave the match thinking you'll loose in mid game.

5) Melee is a rock paper scissors system: all players, antagonists, npcs bassically have it, if you learn it and practice it, like anything else you'll get good at it like anything else, it's not op just mechanics

Pros:
-Unique characters: all characters are a lil diffrent from each other tho take from basic pen a paper mechanics. all have assests and defects to add to a team.

-Multiple mission goals/mechanics: Not every match is just mow down the enemy. there are capture points, boss fights, escorts, overload the core/bomb, protect an object/person, and mechanics to work with em in each mission.

-Customization: Tho limited as of right now you can customize a characters kit or load out to slightly change their play style to better suit your's via in game currency. (side note there are skins unlockable via real currancy as of the moment)

-Antagonist mode: Allows you to play against a party as the villian/enemy via the characters you have unlocked, gives a diffrent perspective on each mission, but is double edged. it both feels good to take down an enemy player amongts the npc hoards and boss battles, but can also be a challange if they are not only good but smart adding an extra level of difficulty to a level both new or old.

-Interesting story: Tho limited at the moment if you read, watch and pay attention to not only the ciniematics but the logs in the universe tab, it gives alot of insight to the lore of the game that is quit capatavating in my opinion.

-Style: Both serious and humorius. the art syle remind my a lil of a gorillaz like design for some of the characters which is nice. these are not your typicall front page models with guns you find is most games and movies now a days, theyre rough n tough tryin to survive on a broken planet. the mix of scifi, mystic (tho only show breifly), and ancient tech is a nice blend upon the man made structures to the decaying lands and and abandoned ruins of this.

-In an out: can basically can just jump in play a few matches (depeding on que and completion time) and jump out

Cons
-Low pop (currently)/que times: dispite several other reviews matchmaking is "working" as of writing this review. in my experience it takes 3-17 min to get a match/team depending on the time of day, if solo, in a party, and the map, and antagonist que in too. but people do leave ques, lobby, mid match due to either being afk thinking they'll lose (both on antagonist and raiders side), disconnects and such. at the moment the fastest is the prolouge as its free and where most of the current pop will be, but latley ppl have been expanding to the the campain.

-Antagonist mode: tho i truly do enjoy this aspect of the game as it not only adds an extra level of difficulty for the raiders side depending on the player, if said player leaves it's an automatic win which is double edged, as with current pop ques may be long so if you dont "complete" the mission you dont progress even tho you won the mission due to the antagonist leaving. you'll also need to level up your antagonist rank to build certain if not all weapons as of writing this review.

-No co-op que. it'd be nice to just que up with your party wether its 2,3, or full with out having to match for the missing slots, or just to play with out the woory of an antagonist sometimes.

-short: tho the content is repeatable (an antagonists make each match a lil different), for me it as deffinetly left me wanting more, not only in story but in missions, to raid more.

-communication: no real ingame chat or speak currently implemented to communicate more detailed items, or just to chat. only a sytem of calls/shouts/signals and emotes.


mixed/misc items
controls: it takes a lil geting used to and seem a lil odd at first, but it does flow nicley once you get used to em, especially on a gamepad/controller in my opinion.

rewards: at the end of the mission u get 3-4 items every time win or lose. x amount of factions, x amount of character points, x amount of gold, and a blue print depending on how the party did. the thing is you have to choose 1, and if 1 or more players choose the the same item it's either split equally or if its the blue print it spins the bottle and who ever it lands on gets it. i both like an dislike this as it make it a lil realistic as its sayin this is what you all go split it amongs your selves, but can also cause the grind to lengthen.

Campaigns released seperetly: though the over all current purchase of all pipline season 2017 campains amount to 40$ or less if u only buy parts at 10$ per, the inital release of just the proluge and 1st campaign has left me wanting more, not later but now. but at the same time depending on reviews and feed back via this first campaign it could provide the developers a chance to tweek the upcomping portions in part instead of the entire game as a whole.



overall in my opinion it's a good game that has alot of potential, mixing alot of aspects of several other 3rd person shooters of the same genre while adding it's own mix, and i'd like to see where it goes.

Played this with some friends, had a blast. I played through most of the alien myths campaign by myself, but i still had a lot of fun.

Its definetely a bit clunky, but you get used to it after an hour or two. Feels pretty fresh though, and unique.

Playing as the antagonist is a huge thrill once you learn how to murder multiple players by yourself.

Truth is, there isnt microtransactions. Only for skins. The rest you unlock by playing online and getting currency that way. If you play solo, you'll only get coins. Things should be hard to unlock, otherwise people burn through the game too fast.

Great art style too, its what brought me into this game.

But oml please fix the matchmaking.

let me do a comprehensive review
-trying to hop on spacelords is like trying to jump on top of a bullet train-

plus: good art, lore, art, anything related to visuals minus forced letterbox in cinematics

minus: unrewarding brutal difficulty, extreme grind, undercooked or badly designed gameplay ideas and systems

They keep trying to update the game's system with different ideas but always stay away from the very obvious flaws enforcing this ''our game is different'' mentality that slowly kills the game.

At least they are more consistent than most developers with new costumes ,characters and guns always releasing fairly quickly.

I still think the game is not worth a shot, they need to understand AND ACT on the bads, not do some band-aid patching.

Forums and discussion section in-STEAM is filled with player feedback

small update on this review : even with the identity update the game is still uneedlessly difficulty and does not deserve any attention, stick with warframe

when it's announced this game is shutting down I won't be surprised 1 bit.

final edit: so the game is doing an event where some red moon might or might not kill everything similar to XIV(before ARR)
this might be your last chance to play this game,so I say go for it.