The six-degrees-of-freedom genre is known for its open-ended movement, where floor and ceiling often mean the same thing: lava.
These so-called 6DOF shooters are few and far between, and there is only a handful of notable releases that I’m actually aware of – with Descent (1995) being the all-time genre classic.
However, if you thought that there was a limited number of big budget 6DOF shooters, there are even fewer roguelikes and roguelites that use this formula. However, of those that do, Desecrators is definitely one of the best at it.
What is Desecrators?
Developed by Woodhound, Desecrators is a 6DOF spaceship shooter about entering various space structures and stealing as much loot as you can while you’re there.
Along the way, you’ll encounter tons of hostile denizens that don’t appreciate your trespassing and make it clear through the barrage of bullets they send your way.
You’ll also find rival ships that are after the same artefacts you are and aren’t afraid to cause a three-way war inside of a tight corridor. Be on the lookout for occasional large anomaly ships, too, especially the one guarding the Galactic Treasury.
Guns Guns Guns!
To deal with the variety of tanks, ships, and other defences hanging around the facilities, you have access to a range of weapons and upgrades. There are about 30 different weapons to find, and they are split into primary and secondary slots.
Primaries are your main damage output, via things like an X-ray laser beam, a pentagun firework blast, and the pyro flamethrower.
Secondaries are more limited but powerful, with the likes of the huntress homing missiles, kraken green flak shots, and bubble-bombs that suck in enemies. There are also a few different types of mines you can lay around if you’re into baiting ships into traps.
Interesting Level Generation
Oddly enough, the real meat of the roguelike variety in Desecrators is through enemy encounters and level generation. Enemy variety is really good with tons of different ship types to worry about.
The rival Desecrators I mentioned earlier are horrifying to deal with since they have access to the same weapons as you. Places you plunder have distinct level generation and each mission has tons of hidden routes and secrets to explore that are incentivised with extra money, rare revives, and new weapons.
As you are completing objectives, new waves of enemies will appear, and new secrets will open up – it feels like the bases you invade are reacting to your presence.
While I would like to see more player upgrade variety and mission objectives choices, I wouldn’t say that the game feels lacking due to the fullness of what’s already there. There’s a level of polish involved in Desecrators’ game design that is impressive.
One Last Thing
Desecrators has a very eerie PS2 aesthetic of dark hallways and spooky dynamic music. The textures are a bit messy and clearly don’t fit the walls they’re attached to sometimes, and I do wish there was a bit more of a punch when attacking larger enemies, but some of it might be part of the retro charm.
Finally, despite its sometimes janky looks, Desecrators seems to be bug free, has plenty of accessibility options, control rebinds, and there’s even a co-op mode for good measure!
Desecrators is one of my favourites so far this year due to its uber-focused, ultra-polished gameplay loop that never seems to get old despite a few minor shortcomings. I have yet to get tired of navigating the eerie bases and blowing up my adversaries!
Desecrators is out now on PC (Win).
