Redacted, created by Striking Distance Studios, is a roguelike spinoff from their previous project The Callisto Protocol. It is following in the footsteps of many modern roguelikes at first glance and is somewhat a surprising direction to take given that the Callisto Protocol was more in the Horror genre. Redacted was released on October 24th and is available on all platforms except the switch.
The Tried And True Formula
The tried and true formula remains of modern roguelikes as we have yet another game that is taking cues from its peers like Hades or Curse of the Dead Gods. There are multiple currencies to collect and a multitude of unique weapons to use which are either ranged or melee.
We play as a guard trying to escape the Black Iron prison and get to an escape pod, we don’t have any names as we just continue as “another” guard trying to escape when we fail our previous run and start over. Of course the currencies are related to the lore and setting of Callisto Protocol such as contraband and security codes which can be used to unlock weapons and skills to improve our chances for the next run.
Similar to Hades, we fight through 4 different zones to reach an ultimate boss at the end of each one, there are choices for the player to choose when completing any level in a zone either giving us some sort of buff, increasing our health or giving us resources to use back at the base.
Where it differs from Hades is that we set out with two weapons instead of one, where one weapon is exclusively for melee and another is exclusively for ranged damage. The direction of run almost always leans into prioritizing one weapon over the other.
An Interesting Lore Setting
Here as we go on runs we come across multiple different control rooms where we can reveal the case files of other particular characters who are called “rivals”, they are named individuals with proper backstories and are like you trying to reach the escape pod.
Occasionally they can be encountered in a run and are almost akin to the same level to that of an end-zone boss might be, killing them will unlock a new run which where every enemy is sort of leveled up and could be where we get the true ending of the game.
At times if we can clear a room fast enough we can choose to hinder the progress of one of these rivals and make them lose some health. This loss of health stays and makes an eventual encounter with them slightly easier.
Forcing The Difficulty
Unlike in Hades in this game there is no way to choose how difficult we make it, the game is unforgiving from the beginning, but what makes failed runs not feel like a total loss are the amount of resources we gain.
Unlocking new weapons using these resources is always a plus since they are always better than whatever current one we have.This system ensures there is a proper feeling of progression as any new weapon we unlock has the chance to take us further than our last weapon did.
This force of difficulty also ensures the player thinks up a strategy before starting a run as there are little chances of gaining any breathing room in the middle of a run and there are no second lives to rely on.
A Brilliant Passion Project
While Hades was a clear inspiration, the developers did state that making this game was more of a passion project than a proper sequel to Callisto Protocol, hence story wise the connection to its relative is pretty light. The game can be considered its own standalone experience and the love that the developers poured into it is shown from the very beginning.
There have been many styles of play that can be considered roguelikes yet the developers have managed to make Redacted stand out even while following the traditional gameplay loop of a standard rougelike game.
All in all, it is an amazing game with some quirky dialogue, beautiful comic art style and of course satisfying gameplay. It is a worthy addition to anyone’s library who wants challenging gameplay and interesting mechanics to explore.
