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Moros Protocol harkens back to the golden era of FPS. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Rise of the Triad, Blood, Star Wars: Dark Forces. In this sliver of the 90s, FPS ruled the roost and nothing could touch the genre.
Growing up, I never had a gaming PC. It wasn’t until 1997, when I was in Secondary 1, that I managed to scrape together enough cash to buy a mid-range desktop. It wasn’t great but hey, it opened up a new avenue of gaming for me!
One of the first games I ever got for that PC was the shareware version of Rise of the Triad. I played the ever loving beejeesus out of that game. I haven’t thought of it for years but somehow, playing Moros Protocol brought back those memories to the forefront.
Now, the question we have to ask is…is that a good thing?
What is Moros Protocol?
Moros Protocol is a multiplayer 3D FPS roguelike that’s been developed by the team at Pixel Reign and published by Super Rare Originals. It is available only for the PC.
Our review copy was provided by the awesome folks from Super Rare Originals! Thanks so much!
When I got the offer to review Moros Protocol, I was actually a bit hesitant. Our Tokyo Game Show trip was coming up, SIE had just sent over Ghost of Yotei (watch for our review as soon as the embargo’s lifted!) and I’m knee deep playing through Everybody’s Golf, Cronos: The New Dawn and Super Robot Wars Y.
I know, I know!
It’s an embarrassment of riches but I’m only a single dood (the other writers on the site cover their own beats, and mine is gaming) and there are only so many hours in a day! I was fiercely debating on whether to pass up on the review until I took at look at the trailers.
I was sold right away. Then I look at game’s description on Steam and I was sold a second time! Double sold! Time be damned, I’ll be making time to play the game and review it.
Moros Protocol is set aboard a derelict warship called the Orpheus. You’re Alex, and you have no idea how you got there or what’s happened to the ship. An alien infestation (by an alien species called the Darkphage) has taken hold, and everybody seems to be dead.
All you have to aid you is the AI and your trusty machete (or vibro-blade as the game calls it), as you go about discovering what the hell happened.
As a roguelike, death is an inevitability. Once Alex dies, his consciousness is transported back to the the Storage Area, where it’s implanted into another body.
Alex starts off each run with the machete and while it’s weak, it’s super satisfying to use. Eventually, he’ll be able to carry a melee weapon and two guns. While you can drop the guns, the melee weapon is locked. That mean’s there’s no way to carry three guns.
Each room (if there are enemies in it) goes into a lockdown as soon as Alex enters, so there’s nothing to do but jump right into the fray. Usually for me, that’s with the machete at the ready (to save ammo and because it’s fun to use).
There’s a certain meatiness to the whole gameplay that’s super satisfying.
There’s an indescribable visceral joy to be had each time it sinks into alien flesh. Blood spurts out of every hack, decorating the walls in splotches of crimson. There’s a sickeningly crunchy sound that accompanies every impact, drilling home the violence of the act.
Utterly mesmerizing.
When you’re done fighting in a room, you’ll just want to stand back and take in all the blood and bodies that litter the floor and decorate the walls.
There’s method to go along with the hacky hacky bits too, as Alex needs to manage his stamina. Go all out with swings and you’re gassed. You can’t attack anymore and neither can you do the dodge.
Balancing murderous intent and backing off to recharge is key.
I can see why Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers like to kill people with a bladed weapon now. I take too much joy in doing the same thing to the aliens I find in the game.
Alex also has access to two other weapon types; energy and physical. Energy based weapons use energy ammo, physical ones use physical ammo. It doesn’t take a doctorate to figure that out. All the weapons in the game are one or the either.
Shooting feels great but some of the guns are a bit underwhelming. The pistols especially don’t have the kick that you’d expect or the bombastic sound to accompany their destructive nature. Until you migrate to the Tier 2 guns, expect gunplay to be rather tame. Melee is fine no matter what tier the weapon is.
The shared ammo means that you need to juggle your usage of guns too. You can’t rely too much on a single type or risk being caught out without ammo for it. Since Alex can only carry three instruments of destruction at one time, finding a balance is key.
In fact, balance is key to everything.
Over-exploring might give you extra resources and ammo, but you might end up getting hurt. Health is the most important resource in the game (and one of the hardest to recover) so it’s sometimes worth it to get out of a level early to preserve your body.
There’s also a modification aspect at work in Moros Protocol too. As you wander the Orpheus, you’ll encounter augments and implants you can slot into Alex to boost his capabilities. These are lost after you die sadly, so they don’t come back with you when you respawn.
You can equip three augments or implants at a time, but implants can’t be removed once you’ve equipped them.
These add another round of complexity to the gameplay loop, and also serves as yet another aspect of the game to balance.
After Alex teleports out from a stage, you’re usually given a handful of choices on where to go next. All of the locales are a mix of handcrafted rooms and randomly generated locations, so you’ll never encounter the same stage twice…just pieces of vaguely familiar rooms.
Like most roguelikes, the choices you’re offered each have their own special modifiers. Some are purposely dark (which makes fighting super atmospheric and cool), some have more loot in them and some even have merchants who can sell you stuff!
After a few stages, you’ll always have to fight a boss that serves as the gatekeeper to the next section.
The bosses are cool, but a bit too spongey for my tastes. The first one (which you encounter at the end of the Storage area) deals heavy damage (which is fine) but takes a super long time to kill because your gear (Tier 1 at this stage) is relatively weak at this point of the game. You’ll be plunking around with the pistols and see middling damage for your trouble.
One of the greatest highlights for the game is its visuals. It’s a combination of old-school rendering style, with modern sensibilities like real-time lighting. It looks sublime in action and sets Moros Protocol apart in a sea of indie titles.
The way it handles how the light from the drone that accompanies you is super cool. There’s a subtle dithering-like effect at work with the environments lighting up as the light shines on them. In fact, lighting is one of the cooler aspects in Moros Protocol.
Some stages can be devoid of regular lighting.
They’re bathed in red emergency lights, with everything else covered in darkness. This is where Moros Protocol truly shines in atmosphere. It feels like a sci-fi horror movie. It’s evocative of Alien and Event Horizon, which is high praise. You hear the hiss and chattering of the aliens, catch glimpses of them here and there as they cross the lights and then greet them with blasts of gunfire that light up the surrounding in a killer staccato.
While you can play the game with a partner, I didn’t get a chance to try that out. We only received a single key for the game so multiplayer isn’t possible as the game wasn’t even out yet during our review period.
Moros Protocol isn’t perfect though. Its UI is janky and menu navigation with a controller could be much smoother. You can’t get back biomats you spent on upgrading if you decide to go another route on the upgrades path.
Speaking of the upgrades, while there are a lot of them…most of them are rather inconsequential. There’s a definite lack of powerful upgrades that dramatically change the game to strive for. Everything’s pretty much increase stats by a certain point or add more slots for augments. Honestly, these are super dull.
I do also have to point out that the game doesn’t have a pause.
Even in menus, the game is still operating in the background, so you can get hurt and even killed. It’s a weird decision, because you can idle in empty rooms for as long as you want. Why not allow pausing then? What if you have to answer the call of nature in the middle of an incredible run? Just abandon it and die so you don’t soil yourself?
These are minor quibbles, but all add up to the janky factor. Moros Protocol might be good in action but it has its share of rough edges in other aspects.
The Bottom Line.
Moros Protocol certainly was a pleasant surprise. Its unique look drew me in, but it was the gameplay that kept me coming back for more. Despite being swamped reviewing other games, I still made the time to return to the game for some quick runs.
Is it perfect? Nope. There are flaws. No pausing, some UI issues, controller jank and spongey bosses spring to mind.
Do they make the game worse? Not really. I still had tons of fun despite the game’s issues.
If
TLDR:
The Good:
- Unique visual look.
- Lots of replay value.
- Solid and satisfying melee.
The Bad:
- Spongey bosses.
- Controller navigation could be better.
- No pausing.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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