Abyssus Review - Return To The Depths Again And Again

Enter the depths of Abyssus with friends in this co-op shooter that has you exploring the ruins of an ancient, sunken civilization. Through attempt after attempt, learn more about the civilization, improve your character and loadout, and try to survive to the end.

Abyssus is a dieselpunk co-op shooter that you can play with up to four friends, or that you can just as easily run yourself. The gameplay loop is simple but addictive. You'll descend into the ruins in a massive diving bell and emerge on a floor. Each floor is linear and filled with rooms where you'll be forced into combat with the strange, ancient, yet mechanical enemies that call this place home. After the forces of a room are wiped out, the door forward will open, and you'll continue.

Every two floors, you'll find alternating mini-bosses and bosses, but it's quite simply your main goal to get as far as you can, gather resources, and then do it all over again.

There's an interesting level of variety in the rooms and their contents that you'll come across. At its base form, there are a few set rooms that are pre-generated and then filled with a random assortment of enemies in waves.

Additional objectives also randomly occur that focus on room-based objectives, like holding areas ala King of the Hill, or destroying crystals. As you play further, entire floors may get their own objectives, like getting to the end in under two minutes or completing a whole floor without taking damage (good luck on that one…).

Upgrades In Abyssus

It's not just the world that is randomized, but also the upgrades for the player. At certain points, players will obtain relics that can add different effects to the game and add new elemental abilities to their primary, secondary, and ability attacks.

Even if every new player starts with an assault rifle and grenades, by the time you reach the third floor, your health, abilities, and experience could be wildly different.

When playing, I thoroughly enjoyed the level of randomness. It was never just about killing enemies, but looking to take on some additional objective. The enemy pool is a bit shallow; it does change when you reach areas past the main bosses, but even then, if you die, you're back to the original pool of enemies.

There are also a large number of permanent upgrades. Completing certain objectives while playing will grant you access to additional loadout options, and by defeating bosses and getting lucky with opening chests, you'll obtain Soul Fragments that give powerful advantages.

I wasn't too sure about the gameplay loop of Abyssus; it's a good loop, but it might not have been enough to grab me. Seeing how quickly my abilities scaled and how much further I was able to get with Soul Fragments is what really dragged me into the game. Each upgrade isn't far off from another, so there's always some big improvement to be made.

On the first tier of upgrades, I could see features to slightly improve damage, but also ones that allow you to start with a second syringe (a powerful healing item). On the second tier alone, these upgrades started getting a bit crazy. Getting to increase your health by 20%, getting additional ability uses, and even getting to start each run with valuable keys and coins.

A single good run can net you one to two upgrades to begin with, letting you quickly scale and see yourself barely making it through the first mini-boss, to confidently taking out a boss.

Abyssus is a game that could be replayed over and over until the end of time, but it's also very respectful of your time in that you can make progress in a single 20-30 minute run.

Keep Going Deeper

Interestingly, playing the game and defeating bosses will earn you Soul Fragments that improve your character's abilities, but completing Expeditions (reaching the end of the game) will net you Brine Canisters.

Brine Canisters can be used to make your game harder. A clear example of this would be the ability to make Healing Shrines no longer restore Syringe uses. This takes away the ability to refresh what is one of the most powerful ways to heal yourself as you're making your way into the depths.

This culminates in the ability to alter enemy and boss damage and health modifiers.

Abyssus presents multiple levels of play to the player. You can adventure on your own and with friends, and your aim can be to just get to the end of an Expedition and be happy that you got to enjoy the game. Completionists have hundreds of objectives to complete to unlock additional weapons, modifications, and cosmetic items. This will continue to keep the game fun and have you playing in ways you may not be most inclined to.

Then, for the masochist, there's the ability to take all of that progress and stack on additional difficulties to prove that you aren't just able to reach the end, but you can do so with added weights dragging you down.

At no point would any player who reached their level of satisfactory play feel like they were missing out, or that they had been locked out of experiencing more of the game due to difficulty, but it's clear how much time and consideration was put into an experience that would challenge the best of them.

Abyssus Review | Final Thoughts

Whether you want a game to run once or twice in an afternoon to blow off some steam or dive into it for a longer session with friends, Abyssus is a fantastic choice. The randomness of the runs serves to lift up the player, allowing them to gather what's necessary to break through to the next barrier in just a run or two, and not a few hours.

The game maintains its difficulty while also providing players with a wide host of options to power up their characters and gear, and reshape the dungeon they're making their way through to maximise their abilities.

The satisfaction of continuously reaching a new personal best or getting incredibly close will keep bringing you back for more.

Abyssus was reviewed on PC via Steam with a copy provided by the Publisher over the course of 10 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.