As RyseUp Studios’ roguelite first-person shooter Roboquest—now published by Payday creator Starbreeze Entertainment—gets ready for its full 1.0 debut on Steam, it will exit early access in the autumn. With Dead Cells-style fast-paced action, loot fit for Borderlands, and that genuine “one more run” compulsion, Roboquest is definitely one of the most alluring roguelites I’ve played in a while. Its complete release is scheduled to appear in the coming months.
For those of you not acquainted with Roboquest, it’s a slick, fast-paced shooter with a Borderlands-like cartoon aesthetic that loads you up with randomized guns and loot that would feel quite at home in the Gearbox series. It draws from the best roguelikes to create a structure that gives you plenty of potential to customize and refine your builds over the course of each run, along with the option for two-player co-op.
With super smooth, fast-paced movement and shooting at its disposal, Roboquest has felt great to play since it first launched via early access in August 2020. If you’re familiar with Dead Cells, you’ll quickly pick up on Roboquest’s stat system – each stat buffs certain aspects of your character, and weapons will specialize in one particular stat or, in some cases, your character’s highest value stat from a choice of two.
I tried Roboquest out on a whim when it first arrived on Microsoft’s Game Pass service and was instantly hooked, finding myself losing hours to that ‘one more run’ sensation thanks to just how good it feels. The gameplay and its challenging boss fights kept me coming back for more, but even at those early stages of development I felt like I had a lot of potential to create some wildly different builds and still make them effective.
There’s a ton of variety to the weapons, from assault rifles to bows, grenade launchers, laser cannons dual machine pistols, and beyond, and they’re all incredibly fulfilling to blast down the various robot hordes with. This means your approach to a run can feel very different – choose a ranged precision tool and hang back, or rush in guns blazing amidst the chaos. It’s all up to you.
As you progress through the levels, you’ll have to be versatile by changing your weapons to match the increased enemy difficulty – but thankfully with plenty of loot drops and chests that give you options, I’ve rarely felt stumped for choice. The whole thing is scored by a thumping, driving soundtrack from synthwave expert Noisecream, and it’s so good you’ll want to keep listening to it even when you put the game down for the night.
Roboquest release date – gameplay screenshot of a boss fight. The player shoots at a large robot in the middle of an arena, as the enemy deploys cones of dangerous fire on the floor.
The full Roboquest release date will see the game’s final level (and its corresponding boss) introduced to the game, along with five alternative levels to explore and fight your way through. Another class has been added, and a blend of new and reworked perks should offer even greater run customization than before. There’s four new weapon types, over 15 additional enemies, and plenty of quests and secrets to uncover.
Roboquest releases on Steam and the Xbox app in Fall 2023. You can add it to your Steam wishlist, or buy it now for $19.99 / £16.75 to get right in and start playing the early access version. It’s also available as part of Microsoft’s PC Game Pass library, so if you’re a subscriber you can check it out at no additional cost.
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