Satellite Reign
ENJOY OPEN-ENDED CYBERPUNK STRATEGY ON THE RAINY NEON STREETS.
THE RAIN NEVER stops falling on Satellite Reign’s isometric future-city. It’s derivative of countless cyberpunk cityscapes, but amazingly atmospheric regardless. Video ads cycle on huge billboards, re ected in puzzles on the pavement below. Police drones oat past, spotlights scanning for trouble. It’s like Blade Runner if Ridley Scott had lmed it with a tilt-shi lens.
It’s in this dystopian urban sprawl that you, owner of a small corporation with big ideas, must make your mark – which is easier said than done when the mega-corporations and their military-grade security forces have a monopoly on everything. Starting in the downtown area – a bustling, labyrinthine world of neon – your path through this open-world city is the one you carve. You can do missions in any order, in any way you please.
e action is viewed from above, and you control your four customisable super-agents with traditional RTS controls. It’s reminiscent of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but real-time rather than turn-based. Your guys can dash into cover, and their accuracy in a gunfight is determined by range and weapon, enemy position, and by their abilities – which can, of course, be upgraded. You can ank enemies to get the jump on them, snipe from afar, or charge in for a melee attack.
But while games like XCOM and Shadowrun limit you to closed-in levels, Satellite Reign’s open city lets you seamlessly move from the anonymity of the streets, where you can hide in the bustle, to a mission: attacking a rival corporation’s factory or robbing a bank. ese guarded spaces are levels of a sort, but they sit in the open world waiting to be attacked or infiltrated.
It’s daunting at rst. e starting area is enormous, and there’s so much intricate detail on those maze-like streets that you can feel lost. It’s when you see a thick wall, gun-toting guards, and warnings to stay away that you know you’ve encountered somewhere you can assault or rob, and that’s when the game gets really good.
My biggest complaint is how the game feels. It has none of the kinetic weight of XCOM or StarCra , which top-down games like this need to compensate for your distance from the action. Your agents’ movement is slow and heavy, making the battles feel sluggish. It’s a hard thing to articulate in words: it just lacks that slickness that many of its peers have.
is is an issue that haunts every moment of the game, but otherwise, Satellite Reign is one of the most enjoyable small-squad strategy games I’ve played in ages. I love how it blends tactical combat with an open-world structure. Creeping through a heavily defended enemy base unseen is a thrill, and if things go awry, there are plenty of combat options to experiment with.