Never Return

I'll be straight with you: Never Return is the kind of game that lands differently depending on how forgiving you are about Early Access roughness. The core loop is a third-person dungeon crawler with roguelite bones - you run into procedurally arranged underground maps, kill things, collect gear, pick perks, build a character, die, and do it again. On paper the breadth is legitimately impressive. Fifteen weapon categories covering swords, axes, hammers, large shields, and pistols, each with distinct light attacks, heavy attacks, and spell animations. Over 360 weapon models, 500-plus perk effects, 20 build paths ranging from Necromancer and Summoner-Mage to Executioner and Holy Knight. The numbers on the screen go up in a way that absolutely does hit that compulsive reward cycle - community players have logged 30-plus hours happily grinding it. The combat itself is functional and quicker than it looks. Hits have decent feedback, elite bosses (there are 15-plus of them) provide genuine challenge spikes, and the elemental combination system adds a layer of build theorycrafting that fans of deeper loot games will appreciate poking at. Local co-op and PvP are both present, which makes it a reasonable couch option if you want something low-friction to play with a friend. On that side of things, the build variety does enough to keep arguments about who runs what archetype interesting for a few sessions. Here is where it gets complicated, and I am not going to bury it. The last meaningful developer update appears to have been in 2022. The devs at that point indicated they were rebuilding the codebase from scratch. That was years ago. The Steam community hub has players noting that no updates have followed since. This is still tagged Early Access, which means you are buying an unfinished product from a four-person indie team that has gone quiet. The English UI has been criticised repeatedly for poor readability - inconsistent fonts, unclear stat labelling, and control mapping choices that feel unconsidered (block on middle mouse is a real thing people complained about). The skill tree, while visually large, reportedly skews toward small percentage-based stat bumps rather than meaningful playstyle pivots. Repetition sets in faster than it should for a roguelite. The 73-percent mostly-positive Steam rating tells you the core loop is real - this is not a broken mess. But the trajectory of the project is the actual risk. If you are buying it expecting a live, growing game with post-launch content and developer responsiveness, the evidence points the other way. If you are buying it as a budget dungeon-crawler to mess around with build variety for a weekend, particularly with a local co-op partner, you will probably get your money's worth before the repetition catches up. Go in clear-eyed, skip it if Early Access abandonment is a dealbreaker for you.

Fred · Scout Team

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