Godbreakers review — What's yours is mine

Far into the reaches of the future, what remains of us is code. A computer known as the Monad, an artificial mind consuming all matter in the solar system to use in its ever-expanding lines of calculation. However, when the sun itself is to be devoured, a celestial group known as the Coven seeks to intervene by weaving together a body. This effigy contains the patterns of a human, and is their last hope of defeating the Monad. Taking up arms with the Coven as your patron, you embark on a journey across the stars to save what remains of Sol.

Godbreakers is a hack-and-slash at heart with a little bit of roguelike seasoning sprinkled on top. Before each run, you'll select your archetype, which determines the weapon you will carry with you on your run. Each has its own attack patterns and combos, along with a unique weapon skill. The Scythe, for example, can summon a small cluster of attack drones to pepper enemies with lasers, while the Lancer casts forward a wave of slashing projectiles. Your archetype also determines other stats like health, but most of the time, I found myself just choosing an archetype with a weapon I preferred more than anything.

A full run consists of visiting three planets before entering the Monad to take on the final boss, and for the first two biomes, you have the freedom to pick which planet you would like to visit. While you can only pick between two paths, I did still appreciate being able to choose which area to go to, as they each have their own set of enemies and environments. If you don't like fighting certain enemies, you can avoid those planets in favor of something else, or perhaps you really enjoy the look of one zone and can go there every time; the choice is up to you and your group.

While each level is diverse in its visuals, the gameplay structure is largely the same throughout. You'll carve through waves of enemies before taking on a mini-boss, then continue onward to face the area boss later in the level. You'll also be collecting gear and upgrades as you make your way through, as well as improving your stats gradually through a resource called essence. And when I say gradually, I mean it. Essences will increase one of your stats by a small percentage, such as 2% increased crit chance or 1% additional chance to apply a status effect. While these do add up over time, runs just aren't long enough to really see these stats get interesting.

Gear however, was much more interesting and lent itself more to creating an actual build. If you want to focus on criticals, there is gear for that, or if you want to overwhelm your enemies with status effects, you can build into gear items that make your attacks proc burn and poison. There are also active items that provide additional utility, like allowing you to toss a grenade or create a burst around your character. Because they are more powerful, though, you can only have a limited number equipped at any given time, so you'll need to make choices about what gear to keep and what to recycle. Gear can also be upgraded at the merchant to enhance their effects even further, and will sometimes gain an additional effect as well, like making your crits apply a stun as well.

The hallmark feature of Godbreakers is, of course, the Godbreak, a combat maneuver that allows you to rend an ability from a low-health enemy, executing them in the process. These abilities vary drastically from enemy to enemy, from long-range projectile beams to team-wide healing totems. Nearly every enemy you encounter can be executed with a Godbreak outside of the area bosses, meaning there's ample opportunity to flex the ability.

While I really wanted to love this mechanic, I ultimately found it to be a little flat in execution. Sure, it's novel to be able to use an enemy ability, but that's pretty much all there is to it. These are one-and-done abilities, and there aren't a lot of ways to strategize using them outside of just doing a bit of damage now and then. This is especially noticeable when you Godbreak a mini-boss, as you now have a powerful boss ability in your pocket. Do you just throw it at the trash mobs in the following room or save it for the next boss and essentially lock yourself out of an ability for a level? It's a very cool mechanic in theory, but in practice, I just felt like it didn't add enough to the combat to make it a truly interesting part of the combat. 

It’s a shame. If the Godbreak mechanic were based on a cooldown or damage meter instead of being a one-time use, then it could lend a lot to the rogue-lite aspect of the game. Upgrades could have added unique effects to Godbreaks and made them an important core of your run, rather than a disconnected afterthought, which players will struggle to weave into combat. All in all, Godbreaks often amount to flashy pocket sand or middling utility.

When you aren’t actively slaying out with your friends, you’ll be spending time in the hub area, which is where you’ll end up after completing a level or dying. It’s a pretty small zone, but alongside being able to change up your archetype and customize your character’s appearance, you will also be able to spend resources to unlock permanent upgrades for future runs. These can certainly be helpful, but I didn’t find the majority of them to be that interesting to engage with. Sure, having a few extra healing boxes spawn in is cool, I suppose, and getting to start with random equipment might speed up your buildcrafting, but I just wish there was more to actually do with this system. After finishing a full run once, I was left wondering what else was really there to do, and really, the only thing to add on is just challenge modifiers. Use these at your own risk, as the downsides are severe, and the unlockables hardly seem worth the Herculean effort.

Godbreakers can be a good bit of fun with friends or solo if you prefer, but it will be a short ride regardless. It’s novel, stealing enemy abilities, but after a while just doesn’t really feel like it shines enough to be the main aspect of a rather simple combat system.