Deadlink review

When the first person shooters arrive for review here at, it’s rarely me at the front of the queue. That’s not to say I’m not a fan of the action-packed fun they offer though, and especially when they combine elements of my favourite other genres I’m more than happy to get stuck into them. Roguelike FPS games have always intrigued me the most, ever since becoming a little too invested in randomised runs of Tower of Guns. Deadlink may well be my new obsession, thanks to its frantic combat and ridiculously clever upgrades system.

Set in a cyberpunk future, in Deadlink you control a robotic shell equipped with badass weapons designed to help take down megacorporations. That’s the eventual goal anyway, but in reality what your role is in Deadlink is taking part in simulation after simulation to test this exciting future tech. With realistic settings like yakuza filled backstreets and unsettlingly clean corporate buildings all fully realised in the simulations, you’ll have plenty of real world situations in which to blast baddies.

It turns out the best way to prove mind controlled robots are field worthy is to get them to murder waves of digital criminals over and over again. Each area of a run of Deadlink is split into different combat encounters, and in each of them you’ll be locked into an area and tasked with surviving all manner of enemies until they’re all defeated. With a selection of pistols, shotguns, and grenades all prepped to deal with foes, you’ll be jumping, dashing and blasting around arenas while painting them with blood in no time.

Deadlink wouldn’t be much of a Roguelike if it didn’t have a whole host of random upgrades to gather as you go, and thankfully it doesn’t disappoint in that department. Each combat room you complete will present you with different rooms to choose to progress through, all offering their own benefit. Genre staples like shops, healing stations, and new weapons are all perfectly good ways to stay alive longer on your current run, but more important than all of these are implants.

Implants are, I guess, implanted on your combat shell to power it up in a variety of ways, from making your next bullet electrified to granting you bonus damage on your next grenade throw. These powers are activated depending on which implant slot you put them in. Swapping weapons can activate some lower powered implants, others require you to use a skill or find and punch a floating orb to trigger. Figuring out the best way to manage your build by equipping the most sensible implant to each slot is part of what you need to succeed in runs, especially when you take into account how your shell’s two skills work around them.

There are four different classes of shell which each come with their own starting weapons and two skills which cycle on a cooldown. The most basic of these is the starting shell, which comes equipped with a shotgun and rocket launcher, alongside the ability to grapple into an enemy which stuns and marks them (more on that later) and a stun skill which knocks any enemies nearby loopy. My favourite shell class though was something entirely different, and billed as being more about being stealth (despite sneaking being entirely non present in Deadlink). With the ability to swap places with enemies to stun and confuse them and a clone ability that attracts enemies to shoot a fake version of you, I loved this weird and wonderful way of playing the game.

The combat loop of waiting for cooldowns to reset and killing various goons and robots is so damn satisfying, especially thanks to how important marking enemies is. Each class has a few ways to mark an enemy (which usually just involves using a skill on it in some form) and when marked enemies are killed they drop ammo and armour to ensure you’re healthy and well stocked with bullets. It’s a fantastic system reminiscent of how health and ammo work in the modern DOOM games, and ensures you’re always keen to kill the next enemy as fast as possible.

Like most modern Roguelikes there are ways to upgrade your abilities between runs, by spending a couple of different currencies you’ll find in the simulations. From upgrading base stats to giving yourself more options in shops and extra jumps, every time you make yourself stronger it feels meaningful and is rather satisfying.

Now everything I’ve written so far about Deadlink was true when it released last year in early access on PC, so what makes the console port so special? Other than running perfectly, having DualSense adaptive trigger support, and being a great fit for console since precision aiming isn’t necessarily that important, there’s also the addition of the Chronodeck. This time trial mode presents a selection of courses to navigate as fast as possible using your skills to do so, with fake enemies to shoot to pause the timer and loads of tricky platforming. Repeating these over and over to get the best time possible is a hell of a lot of fun, and while not everyone will spend long in this mode it’s a lovely bonus for new and returning players alike.

I had a wonderful time with Deadlink, but I did have a couple of small issues with the game. Boss fights pretty much always feel too hard, and it isn’t particularly fun to constantly have your runs end at them. The random elements of the game are a little less prominent than other Roguelikes too, with less noticeable differences in enemy types and arenas in each run than I’d prefer.

Deadlink is a wonderful Roguelike FPS, with a fantastic combat loop and really clever upgrades to implant. It’s also just a wonderful game to move around in, and with each shell class featuring varied and interesting skills I struggled to put it down. Console ports don’t come much better than this, so if your trigger finger is itchy, Deadlink could be the cure.