Moros Protocol is an absolute joy to play. It is a retro pixel art boomer shooter set on an old, decaying spaceship. The ship is full of monsters, and you get numerous ways to blast them away. The game requires fast reflexes and the ability to think on the spot as to what your next move should be. So, if you are looking for a slower-paced first-person experience, this is not it! This new first-person shooter is developed by the amazing team at Pixel Reign and published by Super Rare Games.
In Space, No One Can Hear Them Scream…
Your character’s name is Alex, who wakes up on The Orpheus, the decaying spaceship that was once one of the most advanced military ships and is now nothing more than a husk of its former self. As Alex, you will explore The Orpheus with your AI companion Ody-6, a cute, lovable, and kind of dumb robot friend who also acts as your flashlight as you explore and fight your way across The Orpheus.
The environment of The Orpheus is like the pixel retro beauty of classics like DOOM mixed with the space horror of newer games like Dead Space. All with the same atmosphere, gore, carnage, and gunplay you would expect from those games. All of this comes together in Moros Protocol, built as a roguelike, the combat is frantic, and the game pushes YOU to figure out how to survive using the right tools of destruction.
What is best in the situation? Go crazy and use dual SMGs with added augmentations to make them give you mobility bonuses. If you like headshots, use a sniper rifle; you can even do an entirely melee-only run. The game features a diverse range of weapons, from standard pistols and shotguns to futuristic, sci-fi-inspired weapons.
Death, Destruction, and Decay
The level design is also ever-changing; the ship itself regularly shifts and rearranges itself on every run, leaving no playthrough the same. The procedural generation allows the levels to always feel fresh, with the game providing new gameplay variables in the mix as you progress. The ship is extremely fun to explore, there are tons of secrets and areas to find, the sound effects, visuals, and the setting it builds are great. However, the music just doesn’t fit the setting, being a fairly generic heavy metal soundtrack, I wish it were more experimental, given the atmosphere the game builds.
Death in most roguelikes means starting from scratch, but Moros Protocol gives you upgrades between every run, so even failure provides progression towards new items, augmentations, and more. The upgrade paths are meaningful, with early upgrades providing extra health, starting with a pistol, and more without costing much. So each run feels like you have made some meaningful progress, instead of the artificial feeling of having to repeat to grind out currency. Also, you can get help from a friend in the co-op if things are getting tough! I couldn’t test this feature out, but the impressions from those who did have been positive with no lag or disconnection issues.
Graphically, Moros Protocol is perfect for what it tries to achieve, balancing that retro pixel boomer shooter art of the 90s with an amazing atmosphere aboard The Orpheus. The use of procedural generation does not lead to repetitive environments or the feeling that it wasn’t handcrafted. Moros Protocol is one of the few games that makes you forget it is using procedural generation. The game ran like a dream, and I had no issues running it, no bugs or major issues either.
The game was originally set to launch on September 4th, but like so many other indie games, they had been moved to September 18th. It will be available on Steam and is one to grab if you love first-person shooters.
It provides a really solid movement controller to the first-person action, the weapons feel great, each run provides meaningful upgrades, and the ship is extremely atmospheric, giving it an almost System Shock-like tone. Pick this one up if you love indie FPS games
You can watch our video review here:
Moros Protocol
Pros
- Absolutely beautiful pixel art retro boomer shooter graphics style that actually uses pixel art textures and more, instead of many other similar games that just use stock "retro" filters that are just not the same
- Weapons feel great, including the melee ones
- Lots of variety in enemies
- Tons of secrets to find
Cons
- Some enemy AI can be a bit dull
- It can take a bit of time for new areas and settings to appear after being in one area
- Soundtrack
