PS5 Redacted PS5 review Review Striking Distance Studios

[REDACTED] Review PS5 – A Strikingly Clever Roguelike That Arguably Eclipses The AAA Game It’s Based On

redacted ps5 review

In the hustle and bustle of yet another year stuffed to the brim with massive, spotlight-hugging releases, it can be easy to forget that there are a number of surprisingly decent efforts that have gone unnoticed by players at large. One of these releases is [REDACTED], an extremely fast paced top-down, combat roguelike that unfolds in the same universe as 2022’s The Callisto Protocol and just so happens to have a fair chunk in common with legendary indie darling Hades. So yeah, this is one title that folks (including me), probably shouldn’t have missed when it originally launched last month.

[REDACTED] PS5 Review


A Strikingly Clever Roguelike That Arguably Eclipses The AAA Game It’s Based On

No matter what you thought of The Callisto Protocol, I’d argue very strongly for taking [REDACTED] on its own merits and if you do that, you’ll not only find a highly compelling and thoughtfully compelling roguelike, but you’ll also discover one of the more surprising titles of the year, even though it doesn’t exactly seek to turn the genre on its noggin.

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Happily, I can report that the premise of [REDACTED] is blissfully simple. The Black Iron Prison which just so happens to be sat on Juptier’s frigid moon Callisto, has been taken over by legions of murderously infected prisoners and prison guards. As one such (relatively) humble prison guard your job is to escape the prison by getting to the last escape pod and leaving the whole nightmarish scenario in your rear view mirror. Naturally, that’s easier said than done and between failing to do it and actually pulling it off, there’s a lot of blood splattered fun to be had.

Viewed from an isometric perspective, each playthrough of [REDACTED] puts you in the likely doomed boots of a new prison guard who must reach the last escape pod in the Black Iron Prison by smashing, blasting, kicking, shooting and exploding their way through anything and everything that happens to be in their path.

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Structurally, each run in [REDACTED] has our increasingly capable prison guard defeating one room of enemies and obtaining a temporary upgrade before choosing which room to go into next (a handy icon above each door lets you know which upgrades you’ll likely get when you enter). Along the way, other room types spice things up such as fabricators that allow you to spend credits on temporary upgrades for your current run, while others allow you to pursue battles that will result in more permanent currencies – such as contraband, keycodes and more – to purchase items and upgrades that will actually persist from one run to the next.

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In true roguelike fashion, though the boss at the end of each biome remains fixed, you can expect the order that these rooms appear to be different with each run, adding a sense of freshness to each playthrough – even if some of the level designs do tend to repeat a little more than they perhaps should.

Brilliantly from a game design standpoint [REDACTED] also leans heavily into its premise of there just being one escape pod that everybody wants to get to by virtue of its neat rivals system. You see, in addition to our somewhat modest prison guard there are psychopathic dinner ladies, savage prisoners and other such folks that also want to escape to salvation too and they can directly affect any given playthrough essentially by turning that run into a race to the escape pod. Along the way you’ll not only fight your rival, but so too can you perform remote attacks on them to make their life harder, such as locking doors for 20 seconds, adding a slow debuff to them and more besides. Where it all gets quite intriguing is that these rivals can do the same thing to you too, forcing you to fight enemies that explode, giving all of your foes elite status and a whole range of other horrid maladies that can help to screw up your run. Perhaps most keenly, this mechanic lends Redacted a sort of propulsive element to each run that other roguelikes cannot really hope to match.

Further Reading – Upcoming PS5 Games 2024 – The Best PS5 Games Coming Soon

All told, the rivals feature in [REDACTED] really helps to elevate it above and beyond what its competitors are doing in the genre, though there are some other more traditional touches present in [REDACTED] that fans of roguelikes will surely recognise. In addition to the usual temporary and permanent equipment and skill upgrades that act as an effective incentive to chain playthroughs together, when you die in [REDACTED] there is a chance that you can come across your newly Reanimated corpse in future runs. The issue here is that if you bought the farm when you were armed to the teeth then, well, so too will your newly mobile cadaver be similarly capable. Though it’s not an especially unique mechanic (the greatly underrated/underappreciated The Mummy: Demastered pulled a similar trick), it still adds a little extra mustard to each run to keep things interesting.

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Arguably though, where [REDACTED] really, truly succeeds is in nailing the figurative meat and spuds of the moment to moment combat which provides the backbone to its gameplay loop. Though you might ‘only’ be playing a seemingly modest prison guard, you actually have a sizable arsenal of different attacks and tricks up your sleeve from which to pull during combat.

Tilting the right analogue stick and holding it will have our protagonist empty the clip of their firearm in whatever direction the stick is pointing in, while tapping the square button will cause them to lash out with a melee weapon, mashing the cross button triggers a dash move that covers a whole heap of ground extremely quickly, while other inputs unleash a furious kick, special attacks and a boomerang style weapon. You’re actually somewhat spoiled for choice in terms of avenues from which to dish out violence in [REDACTED].

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What makes [REDACTED] shine is in how it allows players to bring together all of these elements into a symphony of brutality that never fails to be hugely satisfying and underscoring this level of creative violence is the design of the levels themselves which opens up even more. It feels great shooting at an enemy before dashing behind them to land a critical melee strike in their back, while you trigger an explosive barrel to wipe out another group of foes just as kick another across the room and into a pneumatic crushing door. Some stages have barriers that you can use your dash ability to rebound off of – turning you into a deadly human pinball in the process and feeling (and looking) super cool as a result. I haven’t felt this good about combat in a roguelike since Hades. It feels that good.

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The cherry on top of this cake is that [REDACTED] also provides ample support for 120 Hz compatible displays too, further incrementing what is already a beautifully smooth and wonderfully responsive experience into the bargain. Lucky PS5 Pro owners meanwhile, get to enjoy a native 4K resolution experience that absolutely tanks along at 120 FPS, while an 8K/60 option allows 8K TV users to experience a super sharp presentation at 60 FPS, while non-8K users get that image down-sampled to match their own display resolution, resulting in additional image clarity as a result. For my money though – and considering how much of an emphasis [REDACTED] puts on split-second reaction times – going for the higher frame rate in each case is the way to go.

Away from the technical merits of its presentation, the art direction and audio experience of [REDACTED] turns out to be equally accomplished. With a lively comic book style visual aesthetic, complete with cel-shaded characters, environments and comic book style panelling used for its cutscenes, [REDACTED] is a surprisingly handsome looking effort to say the least. Meanwhile, the relentless thrum and din of [REDACTED]‘s foot-tapping metal and thrash hued soundtrack proves to be the perfect companion for the vicious visceral violence that regularly unfolds on screen.

Further Reading – Upcoming PS5 Games 2025 – The Best PS5 Games Coming Soon

Sure enough, while it doesn’t seek to reinvent the roguelike wheel or provide an especially captivating story or cast of characters as Hades does, [REDACTED] nonetheless provides enough clever adjustments to the formula which are paired to some incredible combat fundamentals to come out of seemingly nowhere and secure its spot as one of my favourite roguelikes of the year.

[REDACTED] is out now on PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro.

Review code kindly provided by PR.

Score

9

The Final Word

Sure enough, while it doesn’t seek to reinvent the roguelike wheel or provide an especially captivating story or cast of characters as Hades does, [REDACTED] nonetheless provides enough clever adjustments to the formula while embracing some incredible combat fundamentals to come out of seemingly nowhere and secure its spot as one of my favourite roguelikes of the year.