Abyssus Is a Roguelike FPS That Largely Overcomes Rocky Waters

However, it isn’t until you acquire some of the overarching upgrades obtained in between runs (more on this in a second) that your builds will really take off, as you eventually unlock the capability to find upgrade stations during a dive with modifiers that can increase firing speed, boost your secondary firing mode, and more. You also get the ability to bolster your boons, increasing the probabilities of landing an advantageous status effect, and so on. When combined, you can construct some genuine death machines, producing the same feeling as when you crush the final boss in a deckbuilder with cards that work together like a well-tuned engine; my first victory over Abyssus’ big bad came from (somewhat accidentally) constructing a buzzsaw launcher that cut through solo targets like a lawnmower.

When you combine all of the possible permutations—your gun, its primary and secondary fire modes, your tool, which boons you pick, which firearm upgrades you choose, etc.—it leads to countless ways to construct a weapon of mass destruction. And man, is it satisfying when this all finally comes together in a run-clearing loadout that lets you blast through those evil little frog men with ease.

However, while in-run progression eventually comes together nicely, one of my main gripes is that some of the options that make runs interesting are locked behind the game’s overarching progression system. In your base, there’s a large stone tablet called the Soul Wheel where you spend Soul Fragments (earned through beating bosses) to gain permanent upgrades. The issue is that some of these upgrades should have been available from the start, like the stations that let you obtain weapon-specific upgrades during a run, which make a huge difference.

And then the biggest bummer regarding the meta-progression system is that most of the previously mentioned eight gun types, as well as their primary and secondary modifications, are obtained in a deeply nonsensical way. For starters, upgrades for your weapon’s firing modes are hidden behind an awful achievement system. Basically, you have to perform obscure tasks, many of which are difficult without a specific setup, that feel more designed to up your GamerScore than a sensible way to dispense what’s arguably the calling card of this entire experience; it’s customization options.

Similarly, many of the weapons and cooldown abilities are hidden behind obscure puzzles that will have many players searching Google for the answers—I’m very annoyed that I’m still missing three of the main weapon types: I want that explosive crossbow! Each of these should have been obtainable by an XP system, where you level up to get new tools, or via a separate currency gained over runs. Or really, almost anything else but what they use here.

And the repetition of using the same weapons in the early game is compounded by some odd difficulty spikes: specifically, the second area, the land of killer frogs, proved my biggest barrier for a disproportionate amount of time. Part of this struggle entailed the perfectly reasonable process of learning the best ways to deal with these unique foes, like the floating amphibians who granted their allies invincibility.

However, at other times, the challenge felt arbitrary, like how the levels in this biome are far more constrictive than the rest in the game, making it incredibly easy to fall into a pit while you’re trying to circle strafe around the approximately 8 billion guys trying to kill you. This style of shooter lives and dies by the flow of its movement, and repeatedly taking a spill while trying to dodge bullets completely tanks this momentum. And don’t get me started about the mini-boss of the second area, who, for some reason, was harder to deal with than the ultimate bad guy of the entire game. There’s just a very odd difficulty curve where the first area is extremely easy, and then the challenge suddenly spikes in the second before more or less flatlining.

These looping treks weren’t helped by the fact that there’s a lot of repeated geometry, and you’ll be seeing many of the same rooms and battle arenas over and over. It’s made worse because the game’s aesthetic isn’t particularly interesting. Each biome falls into a pulp adventurer mode that depicts these protagonists exploring a “foreign” civilization vaguely inspired by Mesoamerica that feels unoriginal at best and misguided at worst. And all your crew of divers wants to talk about is brine; don’t these guys have any hobbies besides saltily complaining in Whedonesque fashion every time a new wave of enemies appears?

Still, even with these many rough stretches, there’s enough worth seeing in Abyssus that fans of run-based first-person shooting will likely be willing to power through many of these problems. Its core run-and-gunning offers twitchy thrills, and when the customization works, it leads to some wildly different weapons. While there likely isn’t any saving the game’s lackluster worldbuilding, with some progression tweaks and difficulty adjustments, it’s easy to imagine this being a much more airtight ship. And even with some leaks, Abyssus is still largely worth checking out thanks to its frenetic gunplay and compounding upgrades that will leave you the king of the sea.

Abyssus was developed by DoubleMoose Games and published by Arcade Crew. It is available on PC.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.