At a glance Synthetik may look like yet another roguelike shooter, but its gunplay feels lifted from a heavyweight tactical sim. This is a game about powerful, loud guns that punch smouldering holes in angry robots. Guns that need manually unloading before you can slam another magazine in. Guns which jam or overheat while a dozen homing missiles swirl in on your position – it’s intense stuff. Flow Fire Games first released this in March, but today’s post-free-expansion version – Legion Rising – was my first time playing, and I dig it. Check the new trailer below.

Synthetik is an odd blend – the clean pre-rendered art reminds me of the old Crusader: No Remorse, but its gunplay feels cribbed equally from Counter-Strike, Call Of Duty and Borderlands. More than other action roguelikes I’ve played, this is about managing chaos. You’ll have to shoot a lot of robots, but a situation can easily spiral out of control, leaving you with jammed guns, shields drained and four bots about to barrel round the corner. Do you heal? Throw a teleporting grenade? Sprint to distant cover? Death comes quickly, and there’s no grace period after taking damage.



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From the dozen or so rounds I’ve played so far (although never past the second boss – a huge VTOL aircraft), it’s satisfying and very technical stuff. Gun management is more involved than most games, and when you’ve only got a limited ammo pool for each of your four guns (three mains and a sidearm), you might want to take things slower and let reticules tighten enough to land headshots. At least failed runs provide you with a steady stream of minor unlocks and upgrades to tilt the odds a little further your way next time, but bullets never stop hurting.

While I was late to the party, returning players can check out the release notes for the Legion Rising expansion here. It’s a little more of everything – more enemy types, more bosses, new guns, music and new class specialisations. There’s a lot here, and systems I’ve only just begun learning. I’ll definitely be playing more of this over the next few weeks, and maybe even trying its online co-op later. While I’ve only played a couple hours of this so far, it has my guarded recommendation – it’s a familiar genre, but a fresh take on it with the best robo-deaths since Binary Domain.

Synthetik: Legion Rising is out now on Steam and GOG for £17/20/$20. You can see more on its official page here.