Metal Eden preview — Rip, rend, reload

Looming in orbit above Vulcan, mysterious engineers tinker away within the monolithic Moebius structure. While it once stood as a beacon of hope for the future of humanity's stored consciousness, a conflict has arisen that threatens to bring a cataclysm to paradise. You are Aska, a Hyper Unit crafted by one of the city's founders, tasked with engaging in cybernetic warfare against the machine forces at any cost; including your life. You are replaceable, but Humanity is not.

Metal Eden is an incredibly fast-paced first person shooter, and feels like a cyberpunk love-child between Ghostrunner and Doom Eternal. You'll be wall-running and gunning through brutalist environments with a range of different weapons and abilities, all of which can be upgraded to fit your preferred style of combat. 

Within the preview build I had access to, there were three different weapons: a submachine gun, pistol and shotgun. While the latter two guns required ammo, the submachine gun instead featured an overheat mechanic, allowing it to be more of a backup weapon rather than a primary option. I was able to upgrade the pistol to feature a high-damage charge shot, and the shotgun was a close range beast. All three of these weapons were satisfying to use in their own way, and swapping between them as I maneuvered through the level and dodged enemy fire felt like a fun and flashy dance number that quickly became addicting. Beyond just gunplay, though, one of my favorite combat mechanics had to be Core Ripping.

In a beautifully grotesque display of robotic violence, Core Ripping allows you to rend the mechanical hearts from your foes using Aska's Gravity Beam. These can then be ejected back at enemies as an explosive or consumed to grant Aska various buffs depending on how you've upgraded your character. During the preview, consuming a ripped core allowed me to perform an empowered punch that stripped armor and dealt increased damage. This was absolutely one of the coolest things you can do in Metal Eden, and I can't wait to see what else you can do with this ability later in the game.

While there wasn't much narrative to experience during the preview, the environments and characters have certainly captivated me enough to want to see more. The narrator, Nexus, is a mysterious and eloquent voice that guides you throughout your journey that I found to be particularly interesting. Acting as Aska's handler, Nexus follows your battles and provides lamentations about Vulcan and the crumbling state of the world, while goading you into finding reverie in the fury of battle. The solid voice acting is paired with beautiful environments that were fun to move around in during combat, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what the world of Metal Eden has to offer.

Despite the moment to moment gameplay usually being quite fluid, I did experience a number of frame drops throughout my time with the preview build. There's nothing more frustrating than a perfect flow state of combat being interrupted by stutters and drops, and it’s something that the developers absolutely need to iron out before launch. Beyond that, however, I really didn't find many issues as far as the technical side goes, so here's hoping that this key issue is able to be handled properly. If so, I think there’s a really interesting FPS here that blends speed with fierce gunplay and cybernetic combat.