Diving into the Abyssus: a brine-punk roguelike shooter.
Abyssus was made by the small independent company DoubleMoose Games, which had only made two other games before this one. Any developer, but especially a company this size, would be crazy to try making a roguelike first-person shooter. It’s generally hard to add new ideas to this genre. For example, roguelikes need new challenges and ways to progress to keep players coming back, while FPSs naturally repeat themselves.
The goal of DoubleMoose was to combine these two difficult game systems into one tough co-op shooter set in a salty, post-apocalyptic underwater world that looked a lot like Bioshock. The game says it will have fast-paced battles, deep meta-progression, and tasks that can be done alone or with friends.
Get ready to lower your hopes if you were hoping for a deep story like Bioshock or an interesting story hook. Abyssus doesn’t have a lot of story. A few sentences of background information set the scene, and random journal notes at different levels hint at a story, but they never come together to make sense.
The game is made to focus on gameplay first, which is a good choice, but it means that a lot of story potential isn’t used. Under the surface, there’s a sense of a story—factions fighting for power, strange energy surges—but it’s mostly just flavor text. Because of this, players are mostly after growth, loot, and combat satisfaction instead of a story-driven experience.
At its heart, Abyssus is a very focused shooter game. Every run starts with a basic set of gear and skills, which can be improved with charms and gifts during the run. Weapons have primary and secondary fire modes, and a third ability, like grenades or a turret that can be deployed, that heals itself over time. Players can stay mobile against tough enemies thanks to double jumps and runs that make movement feel smooth.
In each run, you have to go down into procedurally produced levels full of enemies, mini-bosses, and the final boss. Unlockable mods let you change how weapons and abilities work, and the soul wheel lets you meta-progress between runs by spending soul fragments to improve stats or give you an edge at the start.
Abyssus combat is constant, quick, and depends a lot on being able to move quickly. Attacks come in waves, and enemies often swarm in large groups. Bosses have unique patterns that you have to watch out for and react quickly to. The game has natural dangers like floor traps and red zones, as well as skills that change the environment, like chain lightning or frost buildup.
Abyssus is mostly a combat game, but there are some “puzzle” features in how you control positioning, targeting, and using abilities. It’s hard because you have to learn enemy trends, time dashes well, and keep track of your health and resources during longer battles.
The shooting parts of the game work well, but there isn’t enough variety or balance. Blessings are supposed to make the game more interesting, but they often feel like small stat boosts instead of game-changing powers. Charms add a little more strategic meaning, but they’re still mostly small steps forward.
Many rooms and enemy waves show up more than once in the same run because the levels are designed procedurally. Early bosses may be unfairly hard, and if meta-upgrades are used, beating them may make later fights seem easy. Solo players don’t get the same benefits as co-op players, which makes them less useful.
On the plus side, abilities like the shotgun’s knockback secondary or elemental effects give you more tactical choices, and the fluid movement system encourages dynamic play, which keeps battles interesting when they aren’t meant to happen over and over again.
Abyssus relies a lot on work. It takes a lot of runs to unlock guns, mods, and upgrades, and progress can feel painfully slow. Each run gives you a small amount of soul fragments, which you can use to make small changes, like reloading a little faster or dealing a little more damage. Some changes, like starting with more gold or health, are useful, but most of them don’t seem worth it.
This design makes it hard to enjoy fighting while also having to work hard to see anything really new, which is especially frustrating for solo players. But the grind also gives you a sense of final payoff: getting a new weapon or mod after a lot of runs does feel good, even if the path to get there is hard.
The way Abyssus looks is all over the place. The brine-punk style can be interesting at times: light beams through cave walls, detailed gun models, and enemy designs can all be impressive at first glance. While the landscapes are interesting at first, they become boring after a while because of procedural generation, and after a few runs, many of them look the same.
The game works well on mid-range hardware, including the Steam Deck, and supports ultrawide displays. However, the controller’s aim to help can be too strong at times. Overall, it’s good enough, and sometimes it’s even beautiful, but the heavy use of repeated assets makes it less consistent.
Sound design is useful but not particularly interesting. The music in the main screen is nice, but the music in the game does its job, but doesn’t stick out. The sounds of weapons and abilities are satisfying, and the results are easy to see.
Audio cues from enemies help you plan strikes, but other than that, the music and background noise are pretty standard. The game puts more focus on gameplay than story depth, so there isn’t much dialogue, and environmental storytelling through audio cues isn’t very strong.
Abyssus is a good base for a roguelike first-person shooter because it lets you move easily, shoot quickly, and create chaos with other players. The brine-punk style and tactical choices, such as elemental abilities, give it a lot of depth.
But the game’s repetitive level design, lack of story, bland gifts, and hard grind make it less appealing. Due to perks designed for co-op, solo players face extra challenges, and early bosses can feel unfair while making later material seem easy once they’re defeated.
Even with these problems, there are times when the game is really fun, like when you beat bosses with the right gear or use clever movement to your advantage. If the demo shows potential, Abyssus could shine as a niche co-op roguelike with more enemies, different types of enemies, and polish. As of now, it’s still playable, if occasionally frustrating. It’s the kind of game that rewards patience and trying new things, but it might be hard to stay interested in long solo missions.
