METAL EDEN review — Cast aside your mortal form

Floating quietly above the barren planet of Vulcan, humanity sleeps in a prison of their own creation. Shedding their mortal bodies, their minds have been transferred into the CORE system, allowing them to live on in digital form. What was intended to be a new haven has now turned into a deadly trap, as the mysterious engineers quarrel over the fate of the COREs. You are Aska, a one of a kind Hyper Unit built on CORE technology who must stand between giants in order to save the incarcerated colony.

METAL EDEN is a fast paced action FPS that feels like a beautiful blend of Ghostrunner and Doom Eternal. Each level will see Aska maneuvering through either the vast Moebius orbital station or delving deep into the surface of Vulcan below. These each come with their own set of environments that stand out from one another. The abandoned mining colony on Vulcan features desolate landscapes and ruined structures, whereas Moebius is an impossibly complex network of futuristic dreams. 

While these vistas are stunning, they aren’t exactly memorable outside of a few notable levels. The narrative is similar in this way, where it is certainly serviceable and I absolutely loved the Nexus narrator, but it takes a backseat to the gameplay for the most part. This isn’t to say the levels aren’t appealing, they just sort of lack anything that makes them stand out from one another. Visuals aren’t everything though, and the gameplay here is definitely up to par.

Before getting into the combat systems, it’s important to recognize the best feature in METAL EDEN: CORE ripping. This mechanic allows you to pry the very CORE from your enemies in a gory and bloody fashion, which can then be thrown as an explosive or consumed to grant various buffs. It is so satisfying to punch a hole straight through an enemy, sending out a shockwave that throws nearby enemies and becoming empowered by eating their heart. It sounds brutal, because it is brutal, and it’s absolutely kickass. CORE ripping can also be upgraded to do various things alongside a small skill tree that Aska can use to upgrade her systems, which is only scratching the surface of combat.

While traversing the levels, you'll run into a number of different enemies and encounters that will stand in your way. Much of the fighting is free form as you wall-run, grapple and boost around various arenas and scenery. When you aren’t running around, there are also lockdown sections which will test your mettle against waves of enemies or ambushes that will descend on you as you're exploring around for secrets. One thing I wasn’t super impressed by were unfortunately the boss fights, which didn’t feel like they were that challenging to take on. I also wasn't blown away by the enemy variety, though they do enough to make sure you're always dodging a hail of bullets in a way that feels fun to interact with. 

What did provide ample variety though were the guns at Aska’s disposal. As you progress through METAL EDEN, you will come to unlock an arsenal of weapons to rend your enemies asunder however you see fit. The weapons come in two categories, energy and kinetic, which each serve different roles in combat. Energy weapons are great at stripping armor, whereas kinetics are more suited for finishing off targets. This created a combat flow that incentivizes creative weapon swapping, and allowed me to use nearly every gun I had in a fight.

Each weapon also has two distinct upgrade paths, allowing you to tailor your weapons to your own personal tastes. Take the SMG for example, which can upgrade into either sporting an incendiary grenade launcher or packing a punch with an alternate sniping mode. These were fun to experiment with, and really changed how a weapon operates.

When you aren't parkouring and jetpacking around, Aska also has access to a Samus-style morph ball, but one that is much deadlier than her Metroid counterpart. It isn't just a mobility tool, as you can also fire rockets and release a torrent of electricity on your foes, which was a fun diversion from time to time when the opportunity to use it presented itself.

It won’t take you long to see METAL EDEN through to the end, about 6-7 hours for me, but I can say you’ll definitely have a blast the whole way through. Getting my next weapon upgrade was always a rush of dopamine, and while the narrative isn’t anything that will blow you away, it serves as the perfect backdrop for your carnage. If you were a fan of the frenetically fast paced combat of games like Ghostrunner, then you’ll absolutely want to start ripping those COREs.