Metal Eden: PS5 Review

Developed by Reikon Games
Published by Deep Silver
Platform: PS5

Metal Eden is all about the speed. 

It may have been compared to Doom given its first-person shooter vibe and also its swift gameplay, but set in the future, you take on the role of a cybernetic warrior called ASKA who's asked to break into a secret location and save people within.

The only way to do that is to simply blast your way in, gun everything around you down and survive.

It's a very simple formula and one that's been executed many times before in many similar ways. But the main way games like this continue to be released is because of the commitment to freshening up the genre and also appealing to those who like speedrunning games and get a kick out of them.

There's nothing radically new here in terms of the gameplay. There are skill trees, options to unlock better weaponry further into the game, and the chance to grapple, climb and wall-jump your way to victory.

But turning your character into a metal ball that can steamroll through others has to be a new way of doing things and is in truth a lot more fun than perhaps you'd expect.

Metal Eden is not a game that throws its weight behind its own story, preferring to be something that concentrates on the combat and the run-n-gun ethos. To that end, it's fluid and enjoyable enough to warrant taking time to deal with the chaos.

But with only eight full levels, this feels like too brief an experience for most players. It's a shame it's not a wider berth of gameplay. And while further development's been mentioned for this, if Reikon Games can put a bit more into potentially expanding this universe, the game would prove to be an essential addition to the pantheon of FPS games. 

As it is now, it's a worthy, almost-run.