Mark of the Deep review

At a glance, Mark of the Deep looks a lot like another Hades clone, of which there are a worryingly increasing number these days. Realm of Ink, Sworn, Redacted – all titles that borrow a great deal from Supergiant’s roguelike masterpiece. But beyond initial impressions, Mad Mimic’s adventure has little in common with Hades. It’s an isometric Metroidvania, in fact, with a dash of Soulslike and a fairly even dusting of Curse of the Dead Gods on its combat.

As Rookie, you find yourself washed up on a mysterious island with the rest of your crew scattered or dead. Armed with a huge hook and an inexhaustible dodge roll, you make your way to a ramshackle camp assembled by a few survivors, before being sent out to find the crew and, hopefully, a way off the island. It doesn’t make an awful lot of sense why the first guy you find can’t come with you, armed as he is with a massive hammer and the kind of beard bears could hibernate in, but that’s what Rookie gets for being protagonist, I guess.

While the story exists mostly as a framework for exploration and combat, there is a certain amount of intrigue around the island itself, particularly its inhuman inhabitants and the ruins they’re investigating. You’ll find shreds of exposition in conversations or written on huge glowing tablets dotted around. Suffice to say there are undead hordes, giant crabs, and fish monsters everywhere, and you need to smash their lovecraftian arses back into the brine.

Initially armed only with the hook, you’ll soon unlock new ways to deal damage – beginning with the flintlock pistol that lets you charge up shots with melee attacks before dishing out high single-target damage. It’s also useful for hitting distant switches, which you’ll do a lot of. For much of the game, Mark of the Deep will have you explore an area, unlocking shortcuts and ladders as you go, to find special switches that will open the gate to the boss area.

Each boss you kill and new area you find will reward you either with a new weapon, new Relic, or a new way to remove obstacles and open up even more areas. Bosses are tough, but it’s a simple enough case of pattern recognition. You will need to be aware of certain things, though, whether fighting a boss or a normal mob: one, they almost all have some form of wind-up or lunge – or both – baked into their attacks; and two, they will track you, so trying to dodge past them or hitting the button a fraction early will reward you with a smack in the cakehole.

Death returns you to the last glowing obelisk you rested at, but while enemies respawn on rest, shortcuts you’ve found remain open and treasures you’ve uncovered remain yours. As you explore and find the rest of your crew, some will return to the camp to offer their services, allowing you to slowly build up a hub area where you can buy items and upgrade your gear. It’s a fairly linear set up, but that just keeps things simple.

Anyone who has played, well, any isometric roguelike recently will be familiar with the art style here. Mark of the Deep could pass for Hades, Ravenswatch, Curse of the Dead Gods, or any of a number of other titles. It’s an attractive aesthetic for sure, but it’s beginning to veer towards overused, and while it feels unfair to pick on Mark of the Deep for it, it could cause people to overlook it based on what they perceive it be.

But Mark of the Deep isn’t a roguelike any more than Dark Souls is. Progression is persistent, and there is a narrative to follow. Death simply drops you back at a checkpoint to continue the story. One thing I did find odd was that, while enemies don’t spawn unless you rest, breakables in the environment will repair themselves when you leave the screen, meaning you’ll need to break them every time you leave an area and come back. Which is annoying to say the least.

I’ll also admit to not knowing where it wanted me to go half the time. There are often multiple routes to explore, most of which will loop round on one another thanks to numerous shortcuts, and while it’s great to have such intricate level design, it only works if an area has landmarks or memorable points of interest to navigate by. Mark of the Deep’s level design isn’t quite intuitive enough to get away with it. When you can run around an area four times before you find the correct route at the top of a ladder you were certain you’d climbed already because it looks the same as the other ten you definitely did climb already, it’s not a good look.

Arguably, these are nit-picks at best. I always did eventually find my way through, and I came to terms with the combat eventually. Once I got past my usual Soulslike habit of dodging through an attack to get them from behind and realised spacing and timing were crucial, I got on better. The flintlock also makes things easier early on by doing so much damage in a single shot. Relics help too, as they will grant buffs when you equip them such as extending the reach of Rookie’s hook or allowing you to dodge roll faster and more frequently.

What kept me coming back to Mark of the Deep was the exploration though, despite my few issues with it. Unlocking a shortcut is always a great feeling, and once the combat clicked even the boss fights were a lot of fun. It’s never punishingly hard, but it does maintain a steady level of challenge and isn’t afraid to rap your knuckles for trying to rush through it. It may not look overly original on the surface, but dive a little further and Mark of the Deep is an engaging, compelling little adventure.