Recent reviews by CH3DD4R_G0B-L1N

Once it finally hit 1.0 in September, it got its hooks in. One of the best FPS and horde games out there. I just can't stop purging heretics. Thankfully, the golden throne always needs more skulls.

Wayfinder's troubled development is one for the youtube documentarians.
Can you factor it in to overlooking the missteps in this title? Yes. Do you need to? absolutely not.

I challenge you to find a better value on this storefront for what is on offer here.
These days of people measuring games in a dollar to playtime (and sometimes fun) ratio, this ranks up at the top.


Now, try not to look past my words here when I say, as a lifelong Monster Hunter, this game sratches a lot of the same itches.

IT IS NOT MONSTER HUNTER, but it shares a lot of good systems with it:

• Satisfying core weapon combat not locked to specific classes
  
• RNG loot from repeatable, instanced hunts
  
• Multi-item upgrade crafting system for weapons and Wayfinders
  
• Set building via (d)echo slots on weapons and accessories
  
• drop in coop (only up to 3 players)
  
• forgettable story you can skip to get back to the combat

and most important for any Monster Hunting autist:

Armor sets, full transmog from the start for armor and weapons, dyes to grind or buy, and the real grind: housing decor galore.
Yes, 1.0 added a fully cusomizable "apartment" that would make the nicest penthouse jealous of its square footage.
And some decorations have direct gameplay benefits like permanent stat boosts and in-game loot drops.
Yes you can visit your friends' apartments in coop to show off your feng shui skills.


It does still have its MMO bones but without the F2P crap it originally espoused.
Each of the 8 Wayfinders has a core set of 4 active abilities and their own passive and talent tree for further playstyle customization.
Dungeons are randomized to a certain extent and there is a system of modifiers you can customize to increase difficulty/challenge for extra XP and different loot.
Most enemies and bosses have MMO style raid mechanics with AOEs requiring movment or tanking and some occasional invincible periods for phase shifts.

Lots and lots of loot. Just so much. It was overwhelming for a while to even figure out how to sort it, which could be improved. But we'll likely have to wait for modders to do that (see development problems).

It does have performance stutters. I'm not on a top of the line machine (10th gen i7, 2070super), but I hear even those that are still experience these stutters.
Devs have addressed it once and will hopefully continue to. It can be annoying, but it is in no way game ruining.

I remember playing this back during the open beta and liking everything till the F2P MMO model became clear.
Dropping that (albeit forced) was great for this game and resulted in a product that value gamers should be very happy to have available.
Hope it does at least enough numbers to help Airship recoup, bonus if it lands them in the black. This makes me watch their future with interest.

Somehow, against the odds, Arrowhead managed to achieve perfect balance...between incompetency and contempt for their players.

Look at their fixed/unfixed/fixed-again-but-not-actually bug fixing and ever-expanding known issues list: incompetence.

Look at their clearly usage-only driven nerf philosophy for weapons: contempt.

Look at all the signs pointing to them not playing their own game: incompetence.

Look at the removal of any type of skill expression with weapons under the guise of bug fixing: contempt.

Look at their masterful marketing move of nerfing the damage type comprising a new themed warbond: incompetence.

Look at their insistence on "realism" for every removal of fun or player-based power but ignoring it for enemies: contempt.

Look at the ever-degrading performance coupled with statements that tech to fix it will not be implemented: incompetence.

Look at any decision in this game and you can coin flip the reason behind it as one of those two things.

It's hard to believe more than a handful of people involved in HD1 are involved in HD2.

I now fully subscribe to the idea they accidentally made a good game and are doing their best to correct that mistake.

So I'm going to be a good Helldiver and do my part to facilitate Arrowhead's mission of reducing its player base by recommending you do not buy this game.

If you buy it today, there is no telling what game you will wake up to play tomorrow, if it runs at all.

I can't immediately think of an easier recommendation if you like heist games. I played some Payday 2 years ago and this game came out of nowhere (thanks to the EGS exclusive black hole) to be one of the most fun games I own. Catching it on the intro sale for $16 was a steal and it's only $20 full price? Insane value even if it didn't have active devs still planning content (that they supposedly give for free to existing owners).

20 of my current 21 hours have been coop and I'm still doing new heists and repeats are varied enough to keep them fresh. Pretty sure when i played PD2 (before it became a DLC simulator) I had already repeated everything multiple times by now.

Gunplay is way better than you'd expect. Only a handful of bugs/glitches from time to time (that are still being addressed). Coop networking has been fine. Stealth is viable and fun/forgiving. So is going loud.

IDK how or why they got such a stacked celebrity cast but the quality, and mainly lack thereof, for the voice acting is a constant joy (can someone get Chuck Norris Hooked on Phonics?). It's like playing old, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Cannon movies or modern geezer teasers. And some of the best lines come from the non-celebrity characters.

I have to imagine, outside of the game not working for them, the negative reviews are some type of spoiled gamers that expected something outlandish for free or something. This game is a gift to people who play them for fun. It's not perfect, but it's fun. You know, what a video game should be.

For the likely rare player that stumbles into Wrath who somehow hasn't played the classics or other standout neo boom shoots, this will probably still be mid at best. Maybe it could serve as a gateway FPS or baby's first boom shoot. Otherwise, it just brings nothing new to the table for even a mildly seasoned FPS fan.

One of those games that lives up to the hype. It's just a solid game experience. Shooting feels great, weighty, nice weapon options. Melee has combos, executions, multiple weapon options. Gibs and action movie set pieces aplenty.

Also feels like a great entry for those with, at best, cursory knowledge of 40k. Gives meaning and weight to the reverence Space Marines get. Grants a great sense of the sheer scale of the universe via level design.

Multiplayer is probably dead outside dedicated groups, but there is a coop horde mode (that you can try solo) for what it's worth.

Must wait for a sale, for sure, but it gets one pretty often, so scoop it up then.

I'm not saying it's perfect or any other hyperbole, but it's worth the price to me.

It's impressive for a solo dev project.

There's a demo. Play it. It is the game.

It's blending ideas from many other games into one package: Risk of Rain 2, WWZ Aftermath, Deep Rock, Helldivers, Remnant, Vermintide, etc.

It is none of these games, but its own, rough-around-the-edges blend. And that blend is fun, bottom line.

Is it going to hold your attention for 12 hours a day for eternity? No.
But it's a fun pick-up-and-play shooter with its own style and charm (shout out to the music by a friend of the dev).

I've already had a good time playing with the small community, including a game with the dev in a lobby with more than the advertised 4 players. That's the kind of thing that comes with a small, niche project like this.

Don't lie to yourself if you buy it and just have some fun with a video game.

Great example of what solo devs can do with a good idea and passion.
Nifty preview for a great tower defense x survivor-like mashup.
Gives me nostalgia feels for when I played Total Annihilation like a tower defense game.
Hope the steam algorithms smile upon you.

This is one of those simple games that gets the small things right to deliver a superior experience.

Auto aim is the vastly superior non-toggle option where the right stick can be used at any time to direct attacks as desired. This is such a superior implementation of the system that I'm sad not to see more devs use it. And here in TW, the manual aim even makes at least one of the more strange and seemingly bad weapons useful and interesting.

The meta progression currency is primarily gained through an RNG mechanic that has a mercy function, which all RNG mechanics should have.

Leveling the individual captains lets you take them on as crew when playing the others and nets you not only their weapon boosts, but also their passive/active boosts too.

Movement is not just encouraged, it's necessary. There are "outposts" (AOE circles) that reward different power-ups and currencies on the map with cooldown timers to keep you moving between them. And after surviving a boss wave, one output will fall under attack and you must defend it or lose it.

One of these outposts is a super magnet (vacuum all xp) that guarantees you can get at least one every so often, on top of RNG magnet drops.

Each captain gets 2 specialized challenges: 1) a solo run where only their weapon is available, along with passive upgrades & 2) a challenge run on a special map with special conditions.

You have the option to go endless at the end of any victory run. All (or vast majority) of the upgrades have infinite "overclock" leveling to keep up with scaling.

Performance is fantastic, even on steam deck, which is surprising with the amount of effects in the game.

Which leads me to my only complaint so far - visibility options. Epileptics, don't even watch the trailers. While it isn't necessary, it would be a nice option to reduce some player projectile opacity. But that's a minuscule complaint from an otherwise great survivor title.

The title does have relevance to the game with "Time Cubes" as the reroll/banish/in-run currency, but it did make me overlook this in the past. As did the captain art. But don't worry, this isn't a weeb/hentai survivor game - you barely see the captains even in menus.

Grab this one while you wait for others to finish early access, money well spent for a survivor fan.

I enjoy a good grind, but this grind isn't good. You gotta have fun gameplay to drive the grind. Or something else. As someone else said, this requires too much attention to be an idle game. The tile laying is fine. If there was a mod or something that could auto-equip certain gear somehow, maybe. But the necessity of checking gear stat increments after every battle to keep scaling properly is just too much to even have it on in the background.