Is Godbreakers the Next Great Co-Op Roguelike? — Our Hands-On Preview

Godbreakers tells the story of humans who have been brought back to life by celestial beings to be used as weapons.  These beings are gifted incredible powers (including body modularity) and tasked with taking down a rogue artificial intelligence named Monad.  First, however, they’ll have to reach it. 

The team at To The Sky games, veterans of titles including Call of Duty Vanguard, Hitman, Need for Speed Heat, Battlefield 2042, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Warhammer 40K: Darktide, The Sims 4, and A Way Out, just to name a few, are bringing to life this new take on four player co-op hack’n’slash aimed at pickup-and-play chaos with a touch of roguelike elements.  If that sounds like your kind of game, then read on – we sat down with the team to get a look behind the scenes. 

There are several major pillars for Godbreakers that are obvious almost immediately.  Aiming for fast combat with memorable bosses, they also wanted to build a combat engine that would be fluid, and all without ever locking the player into an unbreakable combat animation. Lofty goals, but as you’ll see if you play the upcoming demo, one they’ve already locked in.  They also wanted to create a game where the gameplay isn’t just based on grinding out levels or skills, but also growing your character alongside of your own growing skills.  I was immediately reminded of games like Returnal, albeit not quite as difficult.  There are two videos in this preview, one being my first time playing the game as a Lancer, and then a second as Pillar – my second attempt at taking down the boss.  I already felt like I was getting the hang of what the game was asking of me, and I was eager to see where it goes from here. 

One of the ways that beat-em-up games fail are canned animations that can lock you into a striking sequence.  Godbreakers fixes this problem with a combat engine with remarkably fluid animations that can be cancelled mid-attack by simply dashing.  Breaking your chain allows you to escape from enemies, dodge attacks or explosions, and otherwise recapture control of the fight.  

One of the key differentiators from all of the other roguelikes is the Godbreak skill.  Getting a foe down to about 25% of their health can make them vulnerable.  Each enemy has a special attack they can and will use on you frequently, including a laser, a vicious chomp attack, diving under the ground and swimming up underneath foes, and more.  You can use your Godbreak power (hold down a button for a period of time) to absorb that attack, taking it for yourself as a one-time use special move.  As an added bonus, it also causes them to explode!  Using the enemy’s own power against them can turn the tide of a tough fight, when timed properly.

While the short demo only has a sub-boss and a boss, the team is aiming to unleash massive and memorable boss fights across the game’s six biomes.  These bosses will be multi-phase, evolving, voice acted, and will aim to push players to the limit.  In the one we fought in the demo, four large arms would burst forth from the sand, exposing a single weak point in the elbow joint, but also smashing anyone foolish enough to remain underneath as it slammed the ground.  It would also see support from minions to keep you moving (and provide fodder to collect Godbreak powers – their mistake).  Keeping on the move would keep me relatively safe, at least until that boss unleashed a massive area of effect attack that caused me to have to run for cover to stay alive.  A good boss fight is likely to cap each of the half dozen biomes, but I expect subbosses to be more frequent than just a mid-level skill check. 

Combat takes a page from games like Hades.  As you take down enemies you’ll occasionally get a drop that offers a trio of choices.  These skills serve as power progression, rather than just grinding currency or levels.  These options offer improvements like “Criticals now add fire” or “Attacks have a 2% chance to apply Vulnerable on hit”.  Rather than just adding “1% to attack power”, the team is aiming to add synergistic abilities to make each run more unique. 

When you die, and you will, you’ll need that power progression to carry forward.  The “echoes” are that meta progression. Beating the boss with the Lancer, for example, unlocks an ability that charges all players with a randomized Godbreak.  Another for the Pillar gave a shield to all players.  Being able to adjust the starter items can change the trajectory of an entire run.  Bosses and mini-bosses also drop items that can be used in various shops to gather additional upgrades and archetypes.  Anything you unlock is yours to keep between runs. As the bosses get harder, finding the right balance for the team should be fun.  While we didn’t get to play them with the demo, Tangles represent modifiers that you will also unlock as you take down bosses, granting additional modifiers for your next run.  

The team has lofty plans for their post-launch objectives, first and foremost being to stay actively and heavily engaged with the player base.  They want to do post-launch updates based on player reception, feedback, and community requests.  This means if players want Archteypes, they will build those.  If new biomes are the target, that’ll be where they focus.  There will be updates post launch, but they’ve been very clear that they want to guide them based on player asks.  

By the time you read this, you’ll be able to play a free demo on Steam to try it for yourself.  Additionally, you can wishlist the game on Steam and Epic.  If you need more Godbreakers ahead of launch, you can also sign up for newsletter and learn more at the website here and join the Godbreakers community on TikTok, Instagram and Discord.  

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