Because the gaming business buckles underneath the burden of regularly escalating triple-A expectations – to not point out triple-A budgets and triple-A improvement instances – right here comes Painkiller, a roguelike first-person shooter that’s so comfy being the mid-tier, low-stakes sport that it’s that I really feel prefer it ought to include a beer koozie and a chilly can of your favourite brew, as a result of that’s precisely what I image most individuals having subsequent to them whereas enjoying this sport in co-op, on-line, whereas chatting with buddies. Is Painkiller going to be the very best first-person shooter of the 12 months? Not whereas Doom: The Darkish Ages exists. Is it going to have the very best story of the 12 months? Hell, it’s barely attempting in that division – and that’s OK. However the revival of this bullet-hell first-person shooter delivers precisely what the unique did: a minimal-stress, largely senseless (in a great way) three-player cooperative FPS that allows you to tune your weapons, perks, and issue for every new run throughout quite a few ranges. And there’s no live-service nonsense. In brief, it’s merely a first rate time, and we want extra of that within the online game business.
The demon, hell, and purgatory schtick begins instantly with Painkiller. You’re a wisecracking demon-hunter dropped straight into Purgatory, however that’s apparently OK with you since you’ve acquired demons to shoot. Your hub from which all issues occur is Purgatory’s Crossing, a protected house the place you possibly can select your character, weapons, and tarot playing cards earlier than both beginning a match (known as a raid right here) or in search of one out. Regardless of which character you select, there’ll all the time be three of you in a raid, with non-human gamers stuffed in for by bots – bots, I’d add, that appeared fairly succesful throughout my time with the preview construct. I began out as Ink, whose vitality soul restoration (aka well being) is improved by 20% earlier than later attempting Void (weapon harm +10%) and then Roch (+25 well being factors). A fourth character I didn’t get to strive is Sol, who has 50% increased ammo capability than her counterparts. They chat with one another now and again throughout matches all on their very own, which I appreciated because it broke up the quiet repetition deliberately baked into the gameplay loop.
Weapons-wise, I had a blast with the railgun-like Stakegun, which launches impaling wood stakes with pointy edges at extraordinarily excessive velocities. I fairly cherished how it will go into an enemy and pin them to the wall behind them, as this added a welcome little bit of oomph to this weapon. The grenade launcher alt-fire got here in fairly useful as nicely when it was charged up and able to go. The opposite weapon I spent essentially the most time with was the Electrodriver, a machinegun-like sidearm that shoots tiny rapid-fire shurikens and has a secondary lightning-bolt assault that may zap any demons in your speedy radius. There’s additionally a default melee spinning blade weapon that’s helpful for chopping down the weakest enemy sorts. All of those are completely upgradeable for future raids utilizing the in-game foreign money earned from racking up kills, taking down bigger minibosses, and attaining goals.
That brings us to ingredient quantity three in Painkiller’s acquainted roguelike stew: deckbuilding. You should buy tarot card attracts so as to add buffs and enhancements to every run. As an example, one of many playing cards I drew, Profane Blessing, provides 30% harm to my weapons. Yup, I’ll take it, please and thanks! Word that the fee to attract playing cards is pretty steep – at the very least within the earlygoing chunk I performed – so don’t anticipate to only maintain redrawing from the deck till you get the precise modifier you’re hoping for.
When you’re truly roaming Purgatory actively looking demons, gameplay is fairly typical boomer-shooter. The unhealthy guys aren’t good, however they’re plentiful, however as talked about earlier, you’ve all the time acquired assist, be it human or bot. And due to that entire never-roam-Purgatory-alone factor, if you happen to go down, your allies can revive you, which provides a bit of additional stress to a match if you’re down to 1 teammate that’s nonetheless upright and the opposite two are bleeding out. It certain is good to get that resurrection, although, reasonably than have your run come to an unlucky finish. In the meantime, the graphics most likely gained’t blow your socks off and the dialogue is deliberately fairly tacky. However once more, Painkiller doesn’t take itself too severely, and that’s simply wonderful.
Should you want a sport to entertain you when you’re chatting with one or two buddies on-line that doesn’t require a ton of funding (by any definition), Painkiller – out October 9 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X|S – looks like it would do the trick. Perhaps that gained’t be sufficient for some in a 12 months that’s completely jam-packed with killer video games, however for the precise functions of hanging out on-line and gaming collectively, you possibly can do a lot worse than Painkiller.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s government editor of previews and host of each IGN’s weekly Xbox present, Podcast Unlocked, in addition to our month-to-month(-ish) interview present, IGN Unfiltered. He is a North Jersey man, so it is “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.