Abyssus is not a game designed to be played alone. This became apparent very early on in the review process when I found myself struggling over and over again to kill enemies quickly and efficiently enough by myself. I’m not saying it’s impossible, and as with any endeavour there will be those who seek out the solo challenge. Declare that it’s impossible to eat an entire grand piano by yourself, and someone on the internet will attempt while blindfolded.
The problem with Abyssus, though, is that its roguelike nature makes it a bit of a slog to get through alone. As an intrepid explorer, you’ll get in a huge diving bell and descend into what appear to be perfectly dry caverns and fight ancient stone-like monsters over and over again. In fact, come to think of it, besides the fact that you wear an old-fashioned diving suit and there’s a distinctly nautical theme, you don’t spend a lot of time actually feeling like you’re submerged.
You mostly run around the same handful of caves, stitched together in slightly different ways but with very few variances, and although progression is well-mapped, it’s a very slow process. Unlocking new guns and abilities takes time, while earning the currency required to permanently improve your stats means beating bosses, which is tough to do with or without a crew. There are also cosmetics to unlock, but unless you’re playing with a bunch of people with a very singular fetish there’s not much to show off.
Abyssus moves pretty well, though, with meaty guns and a handful of pretty fun abilities. You’ll start with a bit of a weaksauce grenade but by the time you unlock the turret it will feel like Christmas. Played with a few friends it’s more fun, as the huge number of enemies is a little more manageable despite the fact that Abyssus overtunes its co-op difficulty to the point of frustration. This might not be so bad if the aforementioned progression was steadier, or if you were rewarded with much even if you don’t kill a boss.
It took a while to unlock anything that felt better than the starting machine gun. There’s a shotgun that has so few shots between reloads that it was almost unusable alone, and a pistol that did increased damage when zoomed-in, but it was a few sessions before I wanted to put down my machine. While the left trigger zooms in with the scoped revolver, it activates the secondary fire mode of everything else, such as delivering a double-barrelled kickback with the shotgun.
At certain milestones between areas you’ll find glowing green monoliths that bestow elemental boons, such as making your primary fire mode set enemies ablaze, or making your secondary mode build up a barrier meter that eventually grants an overshield. There are also chests dotted here and there that hold relics to increase your gold-finding or raw damage. As with all roguelikes, these are completely random, and your success can rely heavily on whether or not Cthulhu is in a good mood that day.
Some of the controls are a little annoying with a controller. Clicking the left stick every time I wanted to run (you can’t sprint at all) caused me to ping a random rock-face and opened a frankly huge text box, which never failed to make me swear.
A hub between forays allows you to modify your loadout, change your appearance, increase your stats, or add deadly modifiers to each run, though if you’re after making this game harder you’re a braver fellow than I. Abyssus is not a game for the weak of will, with some encounters veering close to bullet-hell strafe-shooter territory, with or without your mates.
Ultimately, though, Abyssus is just a bit samey. It’s a pretty standard shooter once you strip away the interesting but utterly skin-deep aesthetic, with little atmosphere or context. You can find notes left by other explorers but they’re very short and there aren’t enough of them to develop the world in any meaningful – or even noticeable – way. It’s fun in short blasts, way better with friends, but isn’t doing anything fresh. It’s a fun enough chaotic shooter, but ironically, Abyssus just isn’t that deep.
