From Reikon Games, authors of the brutal and futuristic top-down shooter Ruiner, comes another brutal and futuristic shooter – a first-person shooter, this time. We blasted through the robotic foes of Metal Eden on Xbox Series X at the mighty speeds this game demands from us – here’s how that went!
Not that kind of metal
In my opinion, we’re living one of the golden eras of first person shooter games. Be it the waves of retro style boomer shooters, be it actual 90’s classics or titles inspired by them, all the way down to a lot of fast-paced and beautiful triple-A productions, from the acrobatic arenas of The Finals to the blood and gut-filled infernal landscapes of the newer Doom games. It is indeed Doom that serves as the main influence for Metal Eden – the incredibly fast and brutal Doom Eternal, in particular. Not an easy task to live up to those standards, for sure.
Unlike id Software‘s seminal shooters, the word “metal” in the title does not imply blasting heavy metal soundtracks – it’s more about the material, as Reikon Games‘ new title is a highly futuristic romp, as we’re surrounded by all sorts of futuristic space-like architecture. In a future where, surprise surprise, Earth has been rendered absolutely impossible to live on anymore, humanity has been saved via implanting everyone’s consciousness into so-called COREs, as a massive metallic and futuristic space city named Moebius holds these chips. Yet, this mission was actually a ruse, with the rich corporations more interested in the minerals found underneath this giant construction. Nasty robots will be protecting a base that we’ll run through, murdering everything that’s moving. Sounds like a plan for our Samus-esque suited up warrior, Aska.
Gotta shoot fast
Metal Eden takes cues from all of the new age of acrobatic shooters. There’s wallruns, grapple hooks, massive slides and dodges, a jetpack. The movement here is fast, and it’ll feel even faster if you crank the game up to its maximum field of view: 115, which renders it an even more frantic and brilliantly flowing experience. The level designs don’t opt for endless mazing, massive exploration segments or any such “filler” – it’s pretty much all out action and fast movement. In that sense, the levels are closer to the Ghostrunner games, rather than Doom – thus, extending in a more or less straight line, rather than expanding around itself. Kill the enemies in an area, move to the next one. Sometimes, you can even bypass combat altogether, while other times the doors get closed until we finish the wave(s) of foes sent against us.
Whichever the case, there’s not much to explore, with only limited amounts of exploration allowed and a handful of secrets to boot – usually giving extra lives (again, think Doom Eternal) or extra resources for our weapon upgrades. Speaking of weapons, expect the archetypes found in most classic shooters – there’s a strong pistol, an incredibly satisfying shotgun, an all-encompassing assault rifle, a plasma rifle, a grenade launcher… you know the drill by now. With a snappy weapon wheel, we’ll have to alternate weapons smartly to abuse the various robotic enemies’ weaknesses, trying not to run out of ammo or overheating our destructive tools in the process.
More than just a sci-fi-ier Doom
Our high speed female combatant, however, isn’t merely just copying what Doomguy can do – her arsenal has various interesting additions. One of the core mechanics is… well, being able to extract a robot’s core from their bodies, snatching them away from a distance – usually only after their shield has been depleted. This core then can be used for two different things: either throw it back to some enemy, causing a big explosion and potentially other effects as well, or be absorbed. By absorbing, our protagonist’s punches become supercharged, managing to break shields much easier, and also turning the screen into an LSD trip of changing colours.
Did I compare the protagonist of Metal Eden to Samus from Metroid? Turns out her physical appearance and suit aren’t the only things in common with her – so is the ability of morphing into a literal ball, then roll around various areas at high speed. This isn’t just about faster traversal, either – Aska gets two different weapons for this mode, and even gets to solve a couple environmental puzzles with it. It’s a pretty neat feature that can be activated on the fly even outside of the areas where it makes sense – shame that, de facto, it can only be used in two levels or so, strongly limiting its potential. Then there’s wallruns, riding on rails and more – Aska’s got moves!
Pump it up
Metal Eden’s story is hardly one that hits too hard, despite a cool reveal at one point and a satisfying finale. The action, on the other hand, just gets more and more intense. Combat encounters become longer and more demanding, with more and more traversal and weapon mastery needed to make it through. Various perks can be upgraded and so can our weapons, with even various secondary modes available for each of them. Aska gets stronger and stronger via upgrades, while the player also has to become more and more capable at fights and parkour alike, as some of the aerial platform sequences get a bit more challenging.
Still, on the game’s normal difficulty, it shouldn’t be too difficult for FPS enthusiasts to blast through the campaign in about 4 hours, a tad more if you explore every corner. It’s not a long campaign, but one that manages to stay fresh and interesting enough all the way to the end, culminating in a not overly complex, yet bombastic final boss. As the stakes increase, the game’s electronic soundtrack also gets more and more pumped up, though the initially quite stable 60 frames per second starts lagging more and more as the action intensifies. I also encountered a couple odd glitches, such as not being able to move sometimes after respawning after a fall, but nothing catastrophic.
Doom Eternal at home? Like that’s a bad thing!
Metal Eden can’t, nor it wants to hide its Doom Eternal inspiration in a more sci-fi theme, but it’s hard to fault a game for trying to live up to one of the best shooters ever made. Metal Eden is an adrenaline rush of a high speed shooter with excellent shooting, great traversal, lovely visuals and soundscapes, one that keeps throwing fancy new moves and brutal new weaponry to play with. It’s a short ride, ending just around 4 hours, and a couple technical gremlins and perhaps its lack of innovation may deny it a spot among the gods of the genre. Still, if you wanna burst through a fast-paced FPS’ campaign before the barrage of massive releases in the next couple months, Metal Eden is an excellent choice!
Metal Eden
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Pure adrenaline rush
- Great shooting
- Fun parkour
- Varied enough for its length
CONS
- That end comes quickly though
- Not hugely original
- A few technical issues
