The Ascent Review (Xbox)

Have you ever dreamed of seeing the stars? How about visiting unknown planets? Maybe at one point in your life, you wished you could ask a mega-corporation for an astronomical loan and work as a slave for the company in an effort to achieve those dreams? Thanks the to team at Neon Giant, your prayers have been answered. If you answered yes to any of those questions (don’t lie, we know you said yes to all of them) then come see the Ascent Group today. They have an offer you won’t want to refuse and should you sign on the dotted line, you won’t be able to refuse it anyway.

Developer: Neon Giant
Publisher: Curve Digital
Release Date: July 29th, 2021
Platforms: PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series
*Review copy played on Xbox Series X*

“Visit Veles. Meet new people, it’ll be fun,” they said…

Filled with people and creatures from all over the galaxy, Veles is a planet owned by various mega-corporations who exploit the planet for its various resources. On Veles, people live within a city that is stacked on top of itself with each district being known as a “stack”. In an effort to pay off your travel loan, players assume the role of an indentured servant(a.k.a “Indent”) for The Ascent Group arcology, who owns you and everyone else in “theWarrens” district you call a home. You start at the lowest point of your character’s life, literally fixing a waste management problem and breathing in fecal matter in what is known as the “deepStink”. That’s just life for you on Veles, doing the shit jobs day by day given to you by your stackboss, Poone. That is, however, until the day the company suddenly shuts down, without any warning and throwing the entire stack into chaos. This leaves you and your boss looking for a way to restore order to the stack while reclaiming your independence in the process.

Although I wasn’t able to beat The Ascent by the time I wrote this review, I managed to experience a large portion of the writing and I rather enjoyed it. Despite the game’s dark cyberpunk aesthetic, the cast of characters you interact with are quite lighthearted and fun. One of my favorites is a Keesh hacker named “nogHead”, who is a member of one of the game’s alien races. You’re introduced to him while doing a job for your stack boss, Poone and he becomes a close ally. NogHead is just one of the many fun and goofy beings you’ll encounter throughout The Ascent. I also can’t leave out the IMP, which is your AI partner that gives off strong HK-47 vibes. Even the characters you encounter on the side are quite enjoyable.

Another highlight of the game’s writing is that even though your Indent is your typical silent protagonist, they always seem to have a presence within the story. For instance, there’s a moment where you go to a nightclub called “Dream World”. Security is tipped off of course and you’re identified the moment you walk through the door but it’s you who gets identified. The game never makes you feel like you’re in the background blindly following orders while other characters interact with each other which I feel is often an issue with these sorts of protagonists. You’re always being acknowledged as an individual within the game’s narrative instead of just being Poone’s lapdog or whoever you’re working with. It’s something I really came to appreciate, especially since the game’s cutscenes are so brief.

Let’s get to work Indent

Developed by Neon Giant, a team made up of twelve people, The Ascent is an explosive, top-down, twin-stick shooter set in the cyberpunk world of Veles. The controls are relatively simple, easy to learn, and quite honestly, the game is a blast to play. You’ll walk with the left stick and aim with the right, using the right shoulder trigger to fire. Players can also evade incoming fire by utilizing their dodge roll or crouch behind cover if they need a second to breathe. How you choose to go into a firefight is up to you as your indent’s gear can be tailored to however you see fit. There’s a rather wide variety of weapons for the players to choose from, as well as tactical equipment such as grenades, drones, and turrets. Players can also equip up to four different augmentations, two of which act as special abilities. Hydraulic Slam for instance is the first ability you’ll find which allows you to throw a punch so strong it’ll knock your opponent’s souls from their bodies. The other two augmentations are for passive boosts such as increasing your overall health or healing more when picking up dropped health kits.

When I originally saw one of the more recent trailers, it showcased cover-based gameplay and it was a feature that piqued my interest. As a twin-stick shooter, I wondered just how it was going to manage that. It’s quite simple as it turns out. Normally, your indent fires from the hip, and The Ascent also features an aiming mechanic where you raise the gun up. Not only does raising the gun up aid in stunning your enemies, but it’s also how you’ll fire over cover. There’s a pretty decent variety of enemies in the game so alternating between cover-based tactics and running and gunning is essential to your survival on Veles. There’s nothing like being flushed out of cover by enemies that leap behind you while cloaked guys with swords also charge at you with katanas. Fun fact, there’s an achievement in the game for getting killed by an enemy with a katana.

If you’re a fan of RPGs where loot is the goal, then The Ascent might be a game for you. As you blast your way across the various sectors of Veles, you’ll find plenty of loot such as armor, weapons, and augmentations. Where the game differs from other looters though, is that the stats on gear are always the same. The plus side of this sort of system is that it eliminates any need for unnecessary grinding while encouraging players to upgrade their weapons and tailor their indent to their style. However, it may also probably turn away the more hardcore players as there’s no reason to keep searching for new versions of items. This sort of approach worked very well in my favor though as I’m the kind of gamer who prefers fashion over function.

Another way to customize your character is through the allocation of skill points. There are four attributes that contain two skills each. Specializing into any of these four attributes will slowly change your indent’s appearance as well. I myself chose to initially build up my Indent’s “aim” and “handling” skills because it’s a shooter and those seemed like a must. In doing this though, my character gained a cybernetic eye and a large metal player around the other. I actually really liked the way my indent turned out because I initially felt that the character creator was pretty weak. With the right kind of armor and body modifications, I actually really came to love my indent’s appearance. Some of your appearances can also be touched up or altered at a grafter who you can often find in one of the games many safe hub zones, although it doesn’t seem as if you can tweak the appearance changes brought on by skill points.

Veles in all of its majesty!

The Ascent’s insistence on exploring its oversized map is the game’s most alluring aspect and largest flaw. Exploration is essential for anyone who wants to keep progressing their indent. It’s how you’ll upgrade your cyberdeck, find loot and gain more skill points. I was constantly finding new paths to travel and loved running around Veles blasting any of the poor bastards who decided to cross my path. However, Veles is a dangerous place and despite what the game’s map might indicate, it’s far too easy to wander into a group of high-level enemies. On one hand, I don’t initially fault The Ascent for this. Veles is clearly a dangerous place to live because if the work doesn’t kill you, someone else will. However, there’s a rather steep difficulty spike when you begin to ascend to the higher levels of Veles and a bit more clarity on disparity would be appreciated. Combat becomes far more chaotic as the enemies begin to diversify.

I want to say I was level 12 or 13 when I first went to “highStreet”, the next ring above “theWarrens” where you originally start out. In the beginning, I was fighting enemies who were actually my level or lower. However, I was quickly given a side quest given to me by a resident in a sector known as “the Glut”. It was called “Lost and Found” and I was tasked with finding a yellow bag that would then be dropped off by another person. The quest itself was level 14 and I found the bag with relative ease. During the drop-off portion of the quest though, I found myself running into enemies that were level 18 to 21. That’s a pretty big jump from level 14 to 21. I was often being killed by a couple of shots and even encountered a glitch during this quest and the indicator took me through two other sectors to an entirely different quest. Another thing worth mentioning is that side quests are given out too soon. The aforementioned side quest couldn’t be completed until I progressed the story further by completing two main missions.

As stated previously, Veles is huge. One of my favorite aspects about the world is that Veles is its own living breathing world. As you ascend throughout the game, you’ll visit the stacks above and they each have their own unique styles while sticking to the game’s dark, cyberpunk visual overtone. TheWarrens, is run down and one of the districts is even flooded out. HighStreet is a step up (a point the game even makes) with a large casino in the center of the stack with some of the sectors having visuals influenced by eastern culture. Veles is bathed in a neon glow and the lights of flying ships. Civilians pack the streets as drones race around overhead. There aren’t very many moments where shootouts aren’t taking place in a public area. The sound of gunfire will send civilians into a panic, making them run away, some begging for their lives and oftentimes, they’ll be caught in the line of fire. It almost immediately became a thing for me where I try to avoid hitting civilians. One time, I blindly fired at an enemy standing near a food stall and hit four or five other people standing close by. Seeing their bloodied-up corpses lining the stall made me feel horrible.

The sound design is also well done and the ambiance really screams “sci-fi”. There’s a sound setting included in the game called “indent mode” that makes the ambient audio much louder than the music. When paired with a headset, the little details stand out so much better than any of the other audio modes. Whether it be the sound of footsteps in water or the chatter of a group of NPCs, those things really help make Veles feel alive, and “Indent mode” is arguably the best way to experience the world. There also came a moment in the game where I had turned off “indent mode” and during a quest where I had to hold down the room while my IMP recovered intel, I noticed how good the music was. The song that played reminded me of the game Ghostrunner and its phenomenal soundtrack done by Daniel Deluxe. During the firefight that ensued, I noticed how well my rifle was syncing up with the beat of the song that was playing and it made the whole encounter feel very cinematic.

Veles has a few glitches but don’t let it affect your work!

I experienced a few bugs in my time with the game though. Nothing game-breaking thankfully but there were a few audio and visual issues from time to time. There was this one persistent audio bug where it sounded as if something robotic was just on the verge of reaching critical failure. It was loud, occurred multiple times and it would happen in an area at random and would not go away unless I restarted the game. The game crashed on me only once and another time I was stuck in at a black screen while transitioning into a loading screen. I only experienced one gameplay bug and it happened with a boss. At one point in the game you fight a spider-like robot boss and instead of making me fight one, the game spawned five of them at one time. Needless to say, I quickly died but the game checkpoints often and when I went back to the fight, the issue corrected itself.

Playing on my Xbox Series X, I was also able to utilize the Xbox mobile app’s console streaming feature and played a bit of the game on my phone. It ran really well, making it perfect for people who travel and have a Game Pass subscription. I enjoyed The Ascent immensely and would even argue that it might possibly be doing the same thing for twin-stick shooters that Death’s Door is doing for Zelda-esque adventure games. Indie developers are really stepping up and showing the world what they can do. The guys over at Neon Giant did a wonderful job creating a living, breathing world for players to explore and wreak havoc in. I might have run into a few frustrations along the way but aside from occasionally walking down the wrong alley and a few non-intrusive bugs, I absolutely loved The Ascent. I’m only sad I couldn’t try out the co-op portion of the game. It’s definitely one of the things I am looking forward to doing with friends when the game launches.