You explore an alien world from inside a bounty hunter's visor, scanning creatures and machinery to learn what they do and how to get past them. It is slower and more thoughtful than a typical shooter: you look around, find the locked door, then hunt for the upgrade that opens it. You can aim with the stick or by sliding the controller on a table like a mouse.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The verdict
This is a slower, more thoughtful adventure than a typical shooter and that patience pays off, though some players may wish it moved a bit faster. You scan the world to learn how things work before pushing forward.
The mechanics
You explore from inside a bounty hunter's visor, scanning creatures and machinery, then hunting for the upgrade that opens a locked door. You can aim with the stick or by sliding the controller on a table like a mouse.
Presentation
The alien world favours quiet, moody detail over flashy spectacle, with sound cues that hint at nearby danger. It rewards close attention to your surroundings rather than constant action.
Staying power
Backtracking to use new upgrades in old areas gives it real staying power. It suits people who like puzzles and exploration more than those who want nonstop combat.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You see the world through the visor of a bounty hunter in a full suit of armor, so the camera sits at head height and everything, including your own hands holding a weapon, is visible in front of you. The stick moves you and the other aims your arm cannon, and you can either aim normally with a control stick or slide the whole controller across a table like a computer mouse for finer aim, a detail that takes a few tries to get used to. Early on you spend as much time scanning strange machinery and creatures with a dedicated button as you do shooting anything, since scanning is how the game explains what you are looking at.
The overall goal is to explore the alien world's connected passages and figure out how to reach areas that are blocked off, usually by finding an upgrade elsewhere that unlocks a new way through, like a bomb that blasts open cracked walls or a beam that unfreezes ice. This makes for a slower, more thoughtful pace than a typical shooter, since you often stop dead in front of a locked door and go looking for the tool that opens it rather than fighting your way past it directly. Difficulty comes less from any single enemy and more from remembering where all those locked doors were once you finally have the right upgrade.
A session tends to alternate between quiet exploring and sudden, tense fights against tougher creatures guarding key areas, so the pacing rewards patience over quick reactions. It suits someone who likes puzzles and backtracking as much as combat, and less someone who wants constant action. The honest drawback is that the emphasis on remembering the map and backtracking to old areas can be confusing or slow for players who are used to games that always point clearly at the next objective.