Developer: Dark Jay Studio
Publisher: Dark Jay Studio, Galaktus
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Arms of God – Preview
I don’t think it’s far from the truth when we state that a new Survivors-like game is released every week, with some being better than others. Over the last year, we have already reviewed so many of these titles, up to the point that we have already forgotten a lot of them too. Many of these games follow the same principle, have nearly the same mechanics, and often miss something that makes them truly stand out in the genre. Today we are taking a closer look at the Early Access release of Arms of God, which is a Survivors-like game that stood out to us thanks to its gritty visuals and explosive soundtrack. While there is still quite a bit of work to be done, we already enjoyed what was on offer here.
First things first, what lured us in when it comes to Arms of God was pretty much the entire presentation and the vibe the game emitted. We absolutely loved the dark and gritty DOOM-esque Templar setting with loads of gruesome demons, nice weapon effects, and, of course, a cool character to play as. The levels are often only small arena-like settings, but there is quite a bit of variety, the backdrops are nicely crafted, and everything just looks like a polished whole already. Obviously, in the current build, things are still limited, but if what’s present is already a taste of things to come, we can’t wait to see how Arms of God evolves. On top of the cool visuals, the soundtrack is superb. Even though some tracks may sound a bit more generic than others, the overall vibe and energy coming from them truly put you in the mood to slaughter unholy demons.
When it comes to the actual gameplay during runs, Arms of God doesn’t do anything truly innovative. You’ll just run around small enclosed arenas, shoot automatically at enemies, gather experience and currency, and that’s pretty much it. The only difference here is that instead of surviving a long timer, you survive fifteen shorter timers in fifteen different arenas. You’ll also find small side-objectives you can complete here, which often involve killing a specific number of enemies, collecting a few items, or destroying something. In between each arena, you’ll be able to purchase new weapons (with a maximum of five weapons equipped), weapon mods, passive upgrades, and so on. When combining the same weapons (tier and name), you’ll upgrade to the next tier. If you wish to keep upgrading your weapons, you’ll have to keep open a few of your weapon slots to work on earlier upgrades for the same weapons, to combine them with higher-tier upgrades eventually. A lot of upgrades are fairly small here, but they eventually add up.
If you gather enough experience, you’ll also be able to upgrade your crux’s aura and abilities as well. This is a fun addition to the gameplay, as it gives you more than generic passive upgrades and new weapons for your character. If you are lucky, you’ll also unlock the possibility to carry it around during a run, meaning the aura and skills it provides will literally follow you around. You’ll trade in walking speed to carry it around, however. It’s mainly in between the runs where other original components come into play, as you’ll be able to rebuild your monastery, where different buildings have different unlocks. It’s still simply a variation of a standard passive skill tree, but it’s brought in an original way.
In the current build, there are obviously still a few bugs. We mainly encountered some issues with controller support in the menus, where building menus would turn unresponsive. We sometimes also encountered instances where our mouse cursor would disappear in the menus. These are small flaws, but they made navigating the menus extremely tedious at times. In-game, we didn’t encounter any issues and preferred playing with a controller.
Conclusion
Arms of God already has a lot of great elements to become a hit in the Survivors-like genre, thanks to its fast-paced gameplay, explosive soundtrack, gritty visuals, and solid gameplay mechanics. While it’s clear that content still needs to be added and some rough edges need to be polished, the game is already worth looking into if you’re looking for a new title to play. As the development progresses, we’ll certainly be returning to this one to see what new elements are added to the mix.
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