Empty Shell is a top-down horror game that I didn’t play quite enough to review, but long enough to know that it’s very atmospheric and rather enjoyable, in a “it’s fun to crap your pants” kind of way.
It’s terrifying because you play as a series of expendable operatives, sent into an old abandoned facility. You’re poorly equipped and ill informed, and each run sees you exploring a black and white world that’s teeming with sinister… things that are out to kill you. I’ll say no more for fear of spoilers.
The game launched in October and since then the game’s developer, CC ARTS, has been hard at work squishing bugs and, more recently, making new content. This week we’ve received the fruits of that labour…
The Daily Test Room
If that sounds ominous, it should. This new game mode, which is unlocked once you’ve completed the main story, throws you into a series of combat gauntlets against ever-toughening enemies.
Each day will offer up a new standardised loadout, but there won’t be any items to find about the place. Instead, you’ll get occasional supply crates but mostly you’ll need to get health and ammo from fallen foes.
The longer you play, the harder the challenge, but your damage and score multiplier will increase as you play, to make things somewhat fair. Post a good score, and your name will go up in lights on the leaderboard, but only for a day because that resets along with the next day’s new loadout.
I think I’ve covered the most important bits of this announcement. If you want to read the full post, or even buy the game (it’s currently on sale), then head over to the game’s Steam page.
Empty Shell hits the Switch
However, that’s not all. As you’ve probably worked out from a combination of the headline and the cover image on the trailer embedded below, Empty Shell is out now on Nintendo Switch.
Still with us? Of course you are! If you want to keep reading about great hand-picked games, the following articles represent a huge collection of the finest roguelikes and roguelites ever made.
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Now let’s get down to business. First, let’s establish the parameters for inclusion. We can answer the question of “what is a roguelike?” by briefly telling you about the game that started this whole party.
Rogue is a turn-based RPG with procedurally-generated dungeon crawling and permadeath. The genre has exploded in a hundred different directions since then, but all of the games on this list retain one or two core features that first appeared in Rogue back in 1980.
The best turn-based roguelikes: Caves of Qud | There are some seriously incredible turn-based roguelikes out there. Of all the modern games, these are the closest to the original Rogue.
Awesome first-person rogues: Gunfire Reborn | We almost went with Blue Prince for this spot, but most people checking out first-person rogues probably want to wield a gun, you know?!
Cool roguelike deckbuilders: Balatro | Sorry, Slay the Spire fans, but this poker-solitaire deckbuilder has stolen Mike’s heart and won’t give it back.
Exciting roguelike platformers: Spelunky | Now, don’t get us wrong, Dead Cells is an incredible game, especially with all the DLC switched on. But when it comes to impact, you just can’t beat Spelunky.
Amazing action-roguelites: Hades 2 | And finally, let’s wrap things up with our favourite of them all. There’s no beating the original Hades, although Hades 2 comes pretty close!
