Coming into this assignment, I didn’t have the highest expectations. You see, I judged a book by its cover, and therefore I thought I was getting something closer to “roguelite Fortnite” than the game that is actually before me.
However, I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that Out of Time has actually proven quite engaging over the last couple of days. Much more so than I was expecting, to be fair. It’s not all smooth sailing, but my first hands-on went better than predicted – which is a good job because I could be playing Hades II right now!
Update: Before we get into it, I just noticed that there’s an AI usage note on the game’s Steam listing, which I wish I had known about sooner, given my stance on such things…
What is Out of Time?
It took me a little while to get the measure of Out of Time, because honestly, there is a lot going on. It’s a really unique mixture of ingredients, and after playing for several hours over the last couple of days, I do think it’s fair to say that there’s nothing on the market doing exactly what Out of Time is. Which is basically: almost everything.
Out of Time describes itself as a simple 3D multiplayer roguelike. But actually it’s not a roguelike at all, it’s a roguelite, if we’re going to be accurate about terminology. In fact, it’s quite similar to Vampire Survivors in the sense that it has auto-shooter elements. Kind of.
It also feels somewhat like a hybrid MMO. For example, it looks a lot like Fortnite (Epic has backed the project, which explains that), character building is structured similar to Destiny, at times it plays just like an old-school MMORPG, and the gameplay loop is heavily inspired by my old friend, Vampire Survivors.
If I was going to call Out of Time anything, I would declare it “an MMO action-roguelite auto-shooter”. Admittedly, that’s not as snappy.
So things get simpler in-game, right?
Not even slightly. You see, from the first level I tried to the last time I died, I’ve been hit by wave after wave of bonkers enemies and bosses drawn from across time and space.
At launch, Out of Time comes with three distinct time periods, one in the past, one contemporary, and another in the future. That explains why there are different types of enemies all over the place, but I’m not sure anything can truly make sense of the gangs of crazed squids that hop about the place.
Out of Time not only has multiple time periods to explore, but within each one there are several environments to unlock. There is a chunk of game here already, and once everything is in, it’s going to be even more stacked with new eras in the pipeline.
Not only are there three time zones and even more environments to battle through, but the enemies that are constantly coming at you are also fairly random. One minute I was shooting Terminator-inspired robots, the next I was blasting crazed foxes. It makes no sense, and while all of it’s explained by weird time-twisting rifts, I think it’s best to just roll with it and not get lost in the story.
One thing that I was genuinely surprised by was the lack of controller support. I’m still kind of expecting to get a note from a PR explaining very kindly how to fix this known issue with EGS, or maybe telling me that I’m doing something daft. I’m comfortable with mouse and keyboard so it wasn’t a big deal, but some people are going to want to play a game like this on a controller, and that doesn’t seem possible yet.
Wearing your heart on your sleeve
As it’s a roguelite, you’ll be earning XP in-game and then using it to level up in mission and then after it. Here you pick your powers before you start each new run, and then level up those abilities once you are playing, rather than changing out powers on the fly.
Your abilities are determined by the equipment you wear, which I thought was probably the smartest part of the game. One chest plate might provide a healing ability, while another, if selected in its place, gives you tons more HP and a special ability.
The armour I used at first had a special power, mapped to E, that was on a cooldown timer. Hitting this button would send out two waves of ethereal soldiers in a short but powerful attack. Later I tried a drone that switches between area of effect damage and healing, alongside a powerful laser attack, once again on a timer, that switches between damaging your enemies and healing your buds.
Once you’ve blasted some enemies with your powers, it’s a case of waiting for the cooldown timer to tick over, and in this sense it really feels like an old-school MMO. I spent ages just kiting my enemies, hopping about the place, waiting for my various abilities to cooldown and become ready for use again.
Armour pieces can be swapped out back at base, and thus you can tinker with your build, upgrade different items, and also choose your weapons. Similar to the armour pieces, your weapon choice is fixed for the coming battle. That said, the relatively short run-times of each level ensures you’re not punished too harshly for experimentation.
A tough nut to crack
It might be a hyrbid MMO, but the solo experience is plenty engaging. Each level is a challenge to complete, and even going in with lots of upgrades isn’t enough to ensure survival.
Once you’re in, you have to explore the map, push back a fog of war to reveal new enemies and resources to mine. There are constant swarms coming after you, with more added to the mix the further into the mission you go (your progress is tracked as a percentage).
Eventually, once you’ve revealed enough of the map, the boss is summoned and you’ll have a final fight on your hands. Just like the bads you encounter on the way to these battles, the bosses are a bit weird. Still, I found these encounters to be quite fun, and while I won more than I lost, each one pushed me close.
Back at base
It is back home at base that you can tinker with cosmetics, upgrade your gear, try new armour pieces (and therefore the new abilities that go with them), and pay gold for small incremental stat increases.
Your power level is determined by your character stats and armour upgrades, and you can see the recommended power level for each mission, and decide whether you’re equipped for the challenge or not.
It’s a simple system on paper, but once you dig into it you’ll find that there are a lot of different armour sets, which offer bonuses when used together. I preferred to mix and match, and try and find a nice balance between damage dealing and healing.
Each armour piece has its own cards, which are then used to determine your upgrade options mid-run. There are upgrades for everything, including big bumps to certain aspects of an ability, such as cooldown time or damage output, or more general evolutions that benefit a bunch of factors but to a lesser degree.
Summing up, for now
In co-op, you’ll need to extend your synergising to your group abilities. For example, there are certain powers that are boosted by proximity, which is a neat little system that I’ve encountered before and encourages close collaboration. Not only that, but you’ll want to make sure that at least one of you is on healing and/or support, especially when you get to the higher difficulty levels.
I played most of my games solo, because at launch it wasn’t working as intended. Honestly, this didn’t really bother me because I’m a grumpy old bastard who prefers to play games like this on my own. However, to their credit, the devs addressed the issue with a patch over the weekend, and when going back in this afternoon, I found that the multiplayer was working much better.
I couldn’t get into a specific map, but after hitting Quick Play it didn’t take long before I was matched with a gang of honourable folks, who fell with me in battle against an army of skeleton warriors way up in the dwarven mountains… Surely things will pick up considerably when Out of Time makes its way to Steam and/or console platforms.
I’ve no idea when that will be, or even whether Out of Time will still be in Early Access at that point. What I can tell you is that right now the MMO elements need more players if this is going to feel like the game that the devs are intending to make.
Out of Time has a long and busy road ahead of it, with new platforms to land on, new timelines to open up, new players to bring in, and new elements to throw into the mix, based on both player feedback and the roadmap ahead. I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on this one, because when it’s all said and done, I found the gameplay loop to be deep and engaging, even if it is still very much a work-in-progress.
Out of Time is out now on Epic Games Store, and I played the game via access provided by Manticore Games and their PR friends!
