Deadzone: Rogue is sci-fi rouglite FPS that combines frantic combat with randomized rooms, loot and upgrades. It wasn’t particularly on my radar though I had seen it a few times on my Steam home page. I clicked on it once, thought it looked neat, and went on to something else.

My friend, Blades, came across it the other day, bought it, and asked if anyone else wanted to pick it up. Seeing that it was just released out of Early Access and it was only $20, I went for it.

We did our first run last night and, much to our surprise, even completed it. I have to imagine it mustbe harder as a solo player.With the two of us we were able to split up the enemies in a room or have one of us draw enemy fire while the other one attacked from behind. There were a few tense moments but otherwise felt a little easy.

Deadzone: Rogue doesn’t stray from the tried and true roguelite formula. Each run consists of 30 random rooms. A room must be cleared of enemies before moving on to the next one. After clearing the enemies, there’s a reward where you choose either an Item or Augment/Perk depending on which chest spawns. Both provide passive bonuses that make up your build. There’s also equipment that drops from enemies that help further specialize your build.

Every couple of rooms there’s a store to buy new equipment or upgrade existing equipment. Every 10 rooms there’s a boss and when you finish the run or die, you’re able to grab some permanent upgrades.

The only thing missing is a choice in what room you go to next. I like that approach though. It forces you deal with whatever situation you find yourself in next with the resources you have.

It’s standard roguelite stuff but it feels really good to play. The combat feels tight and responsive. There’s a directional dodge, which took a little getting used to but feels like it could be very effective once mastered.

I’ll have to go back some time and try a solo run. With two people, the run felt fairly easy, though we were on Standard difficulty so that may change with a bump in difficulty. We might have also gotten lucky with our weapons/upgrades too. You never know, that’s the beauty of randomization.

There are three Zones which, according to the map, are different parts of the ship. I’m assuming there will be some variety between the zones, but we’ve only done Zone 1 so far. Intriguingly, when I choose Zone 1, it says my progress in it is 20%. I’m not sure what that means, whether it’s referring to difficulty or items to collect in there or what. I’ll have to dig into that a bit more.

Our run took about an hour so I think there’s some decent gameplay time here. A quick google says there are four difficulties. So, if each run takes about the same amount of time, that’s at least twelve more hours of gameplay for $20 which is pretty good!

Let’s be honest though, it’s probably more than that. There’s no way we don’t lose a few runs (ok, more than a few…) along the way.