It’s fair to say that for the most part I’m not really a massive FPS gamer, but when you combine that adored genre with the Roguelike I can’t get enough. I just find that these two types of games meld together so perfectly, with the FPS side of things bringing so much opportunity for weapon diversity, power ups, and wild builds that a great Roguelike needs. I would happily die over and over again in FPS Roguelikes for the rest of my video gaming days, so when Moros Protocol came to my attention I was more than a little excited.
Set on an abandoned warship, your character in Moros Protocol wakes up with no memory in a blood soaked corridor. In this nightmare scenario the voice on your communicator is the only real option when it comes to advice, so you listen to it telling you where to go and grab a sword to deal with any pests you’ll meet along the way. This is a Roguelike so obviously you’ll die before long, and to say you’re a bit shocked when you revive is probably an understatement. The voice tells you not to worry and that your mind has been transferred to another form, so I guess that’s that. The story isn’t really the focus for most of the game, but the dark sci-fi setting is wonderful.
Now you know your goals in Moros Protocol, it’s time to get to work. You’ll start each run by default with some sort of space sword, but there are plenty of other weapons types to find as you go. Melee weapons like the starting sword were often my favourites to use though, with regular and charged attack options and only a stamina bar to keep an eye on while slashing through massive mutant flies and little floor grubs.
Keeping shambling mutants at a distance will quickly become a necessity though, and you’ll need to find a firearm. These come in two types, energy and physical, and they have separate ammo pools you’ll need to keep stocked to use them. With a powerful energy pistol in one slot and a chunky physical shotgun in the other I felt ready to take on the world, but despite both guns feeling great to use I soon got battered into red goo by the monstrosities roaming the metal hallways.
There are other ways to power up on a run of Moros Protocol though, like augments. These perks can be slotted into your armour or guns, and have some seriously powerful effects. One run saw me focused on aerial melee attacks for boosted damage thanks to a particularly wonderful augment, and finding various health and healing boosting augments will always help your survivability.
To really make yourself ready for that one successful run though you’ll need to purchase upgrades between runs with biocurrency. There’s a massive web-like skill tree to invest your glowing blue cash in, full of small upgrades like stat boosts and large upgrades like additional starting weapons and augment slots. I found this to be the most impactful way to get further into the game, which if you prefer chipping away into Roguelikes will be ideal.
There are plenty of interesting elements that make up Moros Protocol, but the thing that will jump out first are the visuals. The chunky pixels and bright lights that are dimmed by splattered blood create a seriously atmospheric dark sci-fi vibe. The style is sort of a blend of Quake and Half-Life, and will bring a lot of joy and nostalgia to classic FPS fans.
I really enjoyed my time with Moros Protocol, but a few aspects of the game stopped it from being truly great. It won’t take more than a few runs to start seeing the exact same room layouts, and this immediately makes the repetitive nature of the game less fun. The same can be said about enemies which lack variety too, even with some slight differences like exploding grubs and tougher colour variants. There are some small quality of life elements I missed from other FPS games as well, like the lack of a crosshair and the fact that guns need to be reloaded manually. I was caught out by empty guns so many times because games just don’t expect this of you anymore, and it annoyed me more than I would’ve expected.
Moros Protocol is a stylish and entertaining Roguelike FPS, which just falls short of being an easy recommendation. The gunplay and augments are great though, and the sci-fi setting is a delight. It might not be the very best the genre has to offer, but Moros Protocol will delight and challenge those that dive into it in equal measure.
