Abyssus

My first few runs in Abyssus ended the same way: confidently, then suddenly, then repeatedly. DoubleMoose Games, a Swedish studio built on ex-Coffee Stain talent, has made something that looks welcoming at a glance, bioluminescent corridors, corrupted sea creatures, a diving bell dropping you into ruins, and then quietly refuses to hold your hand past the tutorial. That tutorial, for what it is worth, does cover the essentials: dash, double jump, primary and alternate fire, grenade, and a wrench that stuns rather than kills. After that, the abyss is yours to figure out. The setting is the immediate hook, and it deserves credit. Brinepunk sits somewhere between steampunk and BioShock-adjacent industrial horror, all pressure gauges, corroded machinery, and bioluminescent growths creeping through collapsed corridors. Each of the 64 hand-crafted levels is arranged procedurally across runs, so the rooms themselves are authored but the sequence keeps shifting. Structurally you are moving through Expeditions: small combat arenas with rotating objectives, sometimes a survival wave, sometimes a task you have to complete before enemies stop pouring in. The loop is move, shoot, loot, descend. Die. Start over with slightly more Soul Fragments in your pocket. The weapon system is where the replayability actually lives. Eight base weapons, each with primary and secondary fire modes you unlock over time, fed through 45 modular mods that can make your rifle set enemies alight, freeze them mid-charge, or chain lightning between targets. Divine blessings layer on top of that, granting elemental and mystical amplifications chosen mid-run. Charms drop in green, blue, and yellow rarities and stack into synergies that can feel genuinely silly in the best way. Runs clock in around 20 to 30 minutes, which is well-calibrated for the format. The honest caveat: early runs, before you have invested enough Soul Fragments into the meta-progression tree, can feel like the game is withholding its own fun. Some reviewers and community members have flagged that the grind to unlock basic upgrades feels steeper than comparable titles like Roboquest or Deadzone Rogue. Healing is severely limited, one syringe by default, and solo play is genuinely punishing in a way co-op smooths out considerably. Four-player online co-op is where the game becomes something different. The design intentionally balances for one through four players, scaling dynamically even if someone drops mid-run, so you are never locked into a bot-dependent experience. Weapon and blessing synergies between squadmates reward coordination without demanding it, and the chaos of a full squad in a tight bioluminescent corridor has an energy that solo just cannot match. The soundtrack, composed by Remi Gallego of The Algorithm, alternates between ambient pressure and percussive combat surges that fit the setting precisely. It is one of the more intentional sonic choices in recent indie shooters. Post-launch, DoubleMoose has continued updating the game at no extra cost, with the 1.3 patch adding new playable areas, new bosses, new blessings, expanded skill trees, and full cross-platform multiplayer ahead of its console release. That commitment to free content matters for a game still finding its audience. Abyssus is not a perfect game. The early grind will frustrate players who want to feel powerful within the first two hours. Environmental variety across its biomes is good rather than exceptional, and narrative flavour is minimal, essentially atmospheric texture rather than story. But the gunplay is sharp, the setting is genuinely unlike anything else in the FPS roguelite space right now, and the developer is actively building on the foundation. If you have three friends and an appetite for runs that reward positioning and mod experimentation, this one repays the patience it demands.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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