These are halcyon days for sci-fi horror fans. I’ve played most of the greats but there are still loads for me to work through and it feels like there is a never-ending stream of new adventures, roguish or otherwise, just waiting to try and scare me senseless.
Moros Protocol is the next sci-fi shooter to cross my radar, although it’s not even the first one that I’ve written about this month (Deadzone Rogue and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor being the others) – obviously, it’s the season for it!
This new horror FPS from Pixel Reign (and published by Super Rare Originals) channels the spirit of ye olde sci-fi shooters such as System Shock and Doom, but then reshapes that spirit into something that’s altogether more roguish and even, arguably, a bit soulsy at times.
Waking up to a nightmare
I’m all about games that find a strong narrative wrapper for the roguelite loop, and Moros Protocol does a better job than most in this regard. You start off in a med-bay, awakening after each death to a ship full of dead bodies, reanimated crewmates, and horrible space beasties.
Your job is to find out what happened aboard The Orpheus, your ship, but that’s easier said than done when you’re in a dark metal cage full of monsters, all of which are trying to eat your face off.
Death is never far away, but every time you die, your consciousness is beamed into the body of another shipmate – the eponymous Moros Protocol – and thus your journey has a through-line via the many bodies that you hijack and inhabit during your search for answers.
Each new life also means a new ship layout, which doesn’t quite make sense but let’s put that one in the “fuck-it bucket” and move on. Each floor of the ship includes at least one weapon, upgrades, and then portals linking them together. You’ve got to scavenge, kill alien monsters, get to the portal, and then push on to the next objective, which eventually is a boss.
Blades and bullets
At first you start of with just a nano-sword, but this isn’t ideal and you’re going to want to find a gun asap, mostly so you can keep your enemies at range. There are only three weapon slots, and that’s including your sword/axe, so there’s not a huge amount of variety in your loadout. That makes your choices all the more important.
The upgrade system isn’t the deepest part of the game, with just a limited number of armour slots and weapon upgrades available at any time. There seems to be a good range of weapons, although I’ve only tried out some of them so far; the limited number that you can carry doesn’t particularly encourage experimentation, it must be said.
Your base physical and starting stats slowly ramp up via the meta-progression between runs, which means there is an overall feeling of progress, however, there’s not much in the way of dynamic decision making here, with mostly minor incremental upgrades to choose from. In fact, this is perhaps the least exciting part of the game and that’s a shame because the idea of being beamed into a different body could have meant all sorts of fun upgrade options.
My best moments happened during combat. There is decent feel to the weapons, although the first-person movement took a bit of getting used to. I also died a handful of times when I caught on scenery, which was frustrating but ultimately self-inflicted.
The level design is great with vertical, compact, and atmospheric arenas. Your enemies scurry on the floor, flap in the air, and chase after you on foot. There’s a lot to think about, and I had a lot of fun managing my resources during battle, lining up headshots, kicking barrels, and strafing gangs of space zombies.
It’s not quite an immersive sim, but there is a more traditional boomer shooter feel to the room designs, with terminals to hack into walled-off zones, key cards to unlock new areas, secrets, and vending machines about the place for you to spend your money at. On that front, most of the resource system felt pretty well-balanced, although I did think that both health points and store credits were too scarce.
Plenty of character
The narrative of Moros Protocol gives the whole thing a good push in the right direction, and the mystery of the ship and what happened was enough to get me through a number of attempts before I started writing this up. I really like the set-up from a story perspective, but perhaps a greater range of more impactful abilities would have made for more varied battles during the earliest hours.
As it stands, Moros Protocol is left to rely on gunplay and atmosphere, although both of these elements are well done. I particularly like the game’s retro aesthetic and the PSX-era-inspired pixel-paint art style. It looks great across the board. The menus, on the other hand, are a little on the fiddly side, but only when using a controller.
One thing I didn’t much enjoy was the boss battles, but that might also be me being a bit crap. Plus, there’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to see more of a game but falling short at the same hurdle multiple times, especially if you like to properly explore each floor and so end up spending a lot of time feeling like you’re in Groundhog Day.
I’ve yet to properly try out the co-op, but I’ve got a player two lined up for that, and an update will be dropping on that front in due course. For now, at least, I’m just considering Moros Protocol as a single-player game, and on those terms, this is a solid and engaging sci-fi roguelite that I think will appeal to fans of DOOM and System Shock.
I’m going to revisit the game in co-op and then I’ll update and finalise my review (I’m not expecting it to change much, though). That said, my time in Moros Protocol’s loop has been engaging and eventful, and I’m hoping for the game’s sci-fi horror elements to keep throwing up twists and turns as I carry on my adventure in co-op.
