Spaceborn Awakening ⁽ᵈᵉᵐᵒ⁾
ProtoGames
Spaceborn: Awakening is a narrative-driven roguelite bullet-heaven where you step into the role of a legendary space crew, answering a mysterious distress signal. Eliminate hordes of the Voss Praetor’s corrupted army, awaken your true potential, unlock powerful weapons, harness your emerging abilities and become a Spaceborn to decide the fate of the universe!
Releasing later this year, Spaceborn Awakening is a narrative-driven roguelite bullet-heaven game that throws players into battle against relentless waves of enemies. There’s currently a demo available ahead of the full release, expected later this year. However, it’s pretty clear that the developer is already taking feedback on board, with plans to introduce controller support, a new perk system, and other massive improvements. Developer ProtoGames is clearly dedicated to the upcoming game, and with the demo already looking very promising, Spaceborn Awakening is worth keeping an eye on for their big release later this year!
Taking control of a legendary space crew, the team is sent out to respond to an emergency distress signal originating from a space station. The story is still developing, but it’s clear that despite all the action, this is still a very narrative-driven title. After visiting the station to investigate, the player gets trapped on an abandoned space station that has been overrun by a corrupted army with escalating waves of enemies.
The demo only gives us a brief look at the story. As the game progresses, it will fully uncover the truth about the first Spaceborn and battle a terrifying stellar force that threatens the universe. The story is told through a text overlay that pauses the gameplay, which is very useful, and it also has a skip button to speed through it. However, the skip doesn’t immediately end the story sequence.
Pros
Highly replayable already
Unique playstyle builds
Great unfolding story
Jump straight into a level
Story overlay pauses the game
Difficulty options
Lots of content already
Cons
Skip option doesn’t really skip
Steep difficulty increase
Spaceborn Awakening is a roguelite bullet-heaven game where every run is different. The skills and grades are linked through a system called Awakening, where exploring the Story Chapters will unlock more abilities and expanded playstyles. Each power boost is unpredictable, which makes the game highly replayable. However, there are some persistent unlocks and story fragments which help players piece together the truth behind becoming a Spaceborn. The system provides a lot of player customisation options for unique builds and playstyles for every run.
As a bullet-heaven game, shooting and dodging are core components of the game with relentless waves of enemies. It’s the typical gameplay we expect and love from this genre with added roguelite elements that give it that unique twist. The demo has the player running around levels to complete missions while being constantly pursued by a huge number of enemies. Needing to both attack and kite them to survive. The weapons are auto-aim and auto-fire with a toggle options to disable that, but with all the chaos of trying to find a good path to take the least amount of damage, the auto-attack is very useful.
Defeating enemies will cause them to drop XP, which needs to be collected from the floor to gain levels to unlock more useful things. Completing each level will cause new types of enemies to be released, which increases the difficulty over time with new things to avoid, dodge and kill. Some enemies will charge toward the player and have a visual warning to show the charging path of that enemy.
The demo has a Story Mode and an option to jump straight into a level. Excellent for replay value with the demo and a clear sign that the developer intends for this game to be highly replayable on release.
Overall Game Rating
