Developer One More Level, Slipgate Ironworks, 3D Realms

Publisher 505 Games, All In Games

Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One

Release Out now

One More Level’s firstperson slice-’em-up is an indie game that looks like a blockbuster. Yes, its cyberpunk world may seem familiar: gaze out from the rooftops of its blue-grey buildings, their neon signs and digital billboards glistening in the dark, and you can almost hear Rutger Hauer talking about tears in rain. But it’s no less extraordinary to witness, especially when you remember it’s been built by a team of just 32 people from Krakow. So it’s all the more exasperating when, after creating such a startling first impression, it does exactly what we hoped it wouldn’t (but feared it might) when we played its brilliant demo earlier this year. As the red screen of death warns of yet another Critical Failure, the red mist descends.

When a single bullet or blade can kill you, creativity or aggression tends to be swiftly punished

‘Uncompromising’ doesn’t quite cover it. Ghostrunner’s one-hit-kills make it a game of glass cannons, where you and your opponents are equally deadly to one another. Well, not quite equal, because the numbers never are. In its opening hour, it’s exhilarating to finally make it through a room of five or six enemies, as you finish off the last with a vicious flourish of your sword, the crimson spray splattering the screen in slow motion. Alas, the developer assumes you liked that so much that you’ll enjoy increasingly attritional versions of the same. How about eight enemies this time, except half of them are protected by an energy barrier that you must destroy before you can consider engaging them?