Do we need more roguelikes, roguelites, and everything in between? I ask myself this almost every year, and then one, two, or a few games stand out and prove that while we might not *need* them, these games still provide a lot of fun. Mewgenics and Slay the Spire II have already made 2026 a big year for roguelikes, but stepping away from the genre’s more mainstream entries still reveals plenty of gems, like Morbid Metal.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I dove into the futuristic, fast-paced roguelike from Screen Juice and Ubisoft. You start with a brief, five-minute tutorial that gives you the basics, but by the end of your first or second run, you’ll quickly realize you’ve only been taught the most rudimentary skills you’ll need. Reaching the ceiling of this game will require hours of trial and error to hone characters, combos, and build the synergy that Morbid Metal needs to function at its best. That said, the early stages are still incredibly fun, and I quickly found myself deeply engaged in the combat systems.
Morbid Metal has just entered its early access phase, so there’s still a fair amount of work to be done on certain elements. One thing that instantly stands out as being incredibly polished, however, is the combat system I’ve previously mentioned. It’s fast, fluid, and incredibly flashy. It allows you to build your own rhythm, with special abilities and character swaps that are incredibly smooth. It takes a minute to get used to and is a bit of a hurdle if you choose to play with only a keyboard and mouse, but it’s incredibly rewarding once you get the hang of it. Quickly darting between enemies as Flux, launching an annoying back-line enemy into the air as Vekta, then unleashing powerful attacks as Ekko is a monstrously satisfying experience. The three playable characters are distinct enough that you’ll certainly have a favorite, but you’ll quickly learn to make the most of each of them if you want to play at your absolute best. The overall loop and formula of Morbid Metal can feel a bit repetitive, but as soon as you hit the next combat room and enemies spawn, it’s easy to get lost in the flow of a good fight.
In the short time I’ve spent with Morbid Metal, I haven’t had too much experience with the bosses. Or, more precisely, I haven’t had the chance to beat them in the few hours I’ve spent with the game before its Early Access release. They are certainly strong, menacing, and push you much harder than regular enemies. There’s a good amount of variety in the robots you’ll face on each run in Morbid Metal. Robots with shields, flyers that can be irritating if you don’t take them out early, smaller enemies that will stab you in the back if you forget about them. They are enough to keep you on your toes and prevent the pre-boss fights from feeling like just a boring button-mashing experience.
As you may have gathered by now, the game has a lot of potential. The setting and background story aren’t quite as intriguing as the combat is engaging, but they are certainly worth thinking about as you strive to free your playable AI character from the endless combat simulations. The narrative is what you’d expect from a roguelike, in fact. Something that keeps you playing, but isn’t the core of the overall experience. If the story, setting, combat, and mechanics are all very well done, what’s the issue? Well, I think Morbid Metal has the most room for improvement in its roguelike elements, in fact.
When you enter a run, or an iteration as Morbid Metal calls it, you’ll immediately know what to do if you’ve played a roguelike before. Run from room to room, fight a few basic enemies, and get upgrades as you progress. With Morbid Metal, this loop isn’t quite as compelling as it is in the genre’s best titles. The upgrades feel a little too underwhelming, many of them offering percentage-based increases to attacks, rather than interesting abilities that truly change how you play. With combat mechanics as strong as they are, it’s understandable not to want to change that, but at the same time, I have to wonder if the game wouldn’t have been better off as a normal hack-and-slash experience. Exploration is fun enough, but falling off can be incredibly punishing, to the point where sometimes you aren’t even sure if you want to stray from the main path, knowing that the upgrade you’ll get probably won’t be noticeable. We are still in the early stages of early access with Morbid Metal, so hopefully this issue can be resolved, along with other elements that need attention before the full launch. It’s worth mentioning that the dodge mechanic can also be a bit hit-or-miss at times.
Morbid Metal in its current state is an incredibly fast-paced and impressive hack-and-slash game, and while its roguelike mechanics seem to need some polishing to add some interesting upgrades for your character, the action is so good that you’ll be happy to do one more run after your last defeat, just to hone your combos and test out new ways to string them together. Morbid Metal is an enjoyable surprise in many ways, but it’s nice to see that if everything goes right, we won’t just be talking about Slay the Spire II and Mewgenics as the big roguelikes of the year.