Sometimes, all it takes is a dash of adrenaline-pumping action to get hearts racing. Kusan: City of Wolves delivers just that. Set in a dystopian world of crime and corruption, it promises a dark, brooding atmosphere to accompany its hardcore gameplay. Cubed3 has had the opportunity to get an early peek at the demo and eagerly takes up the challenge. Read on for first impressions.
Fans of grim hardcore games have been well served recently. With titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Lethal Honor: Order of the Apocalypse, the niche has been blooming. Kusan: City of Wolves plans further modern intense challenges for eager gamers to sink their teeth into.
The demo shows signs of greatness to come. The first thing that stands out is the remarkably smooth gameplay. When making a difficult game, there are two ways to go about it: either make it feel very challenging while giving the player free rein over their character, or give them stiff controls so they have to overcome not just the challenges, but the system itself. Both design philosophies have their merits and pitfalls.
The biggest pitfall of the freer approach is that it becomes quite difficult to make the game challenging enough. Thankfully, Kusan: City of Wolves keeps the difficulty high. It also makes the very brave choice to make the player character a one-hit wonder, aiming for a feeling of cruel realism. After all, who survives a bullet to their chest? This adds to the atmosphere and gives each encounter a sense of weight. Nothing here feels like filler; everything is a potentially game-ending threat.
CIRCLEfromDOT also made the excellent choice to accompany this with short stages. Most of them can actually be completed in under a minute. Combined with stellar controls, this ensures that while death is frequent, it never feels unfair nor too punishing. It is a wonderful balance that Kusan: City of Wolves strikes, leaving hardcore gamers pleased from start to finish of the demo.
The level design is engaging and full of perils. Despite this, the demo’s strongest suit is definitely the boss fight at the end. It is one that truly brings back memories of the 16-bit era, when trial and error and learning the boss’s tells were vital to winning. This fight feels like a dance one learns over time, until finally being able to defeat the behemoth without taking that one fatal hit.
While the gameplay in this preview seems very solid, the story feels like an afterthought. Story is rarely the focus in this genre of games; it is unfair to expect something on par with an RPG. However, it does come off dull and non-engaging. After playing this demo, it is difficult to care about anything but the next level coming up, rather than what happens next.
This need not be a problem, but it seems clear that the developer wants the narrative to also pull in players. Hopefully, the part of the game and characterisation after chapter one will become much stronger and more engaging. However, as is, the written aspect so far does nothing to drag players into the world to the point that it is a justifiable break from the gameplay.
Kusan: City of Wolves is a title that Cubed3 is eagerly awaiting to see more of. The gameplay is solid, and the difficulty is hard yet fair. Never once did a death feel like the fault of the game. This is, at the end of the day, the most important aspect of a game like this to nail, and it does so with flying colours.
