Preview: ‘Battle Shapers’ is ‘Overwatch’ meets ‘Megaman’

This summer has been abuzz with game previews, not to mention new releases crowding the scene. Battle Shapers is one of the many hot new indies dropping in a year full of hot new indies — probably sometime later this year. Until then, I got some hands-on time with the game and I’m happy to say I bear good tidings.

You play as Ada, attempting to reclaim your robo-city from some robo-dudes. If it sounds familiar, it is, and that’s fine! Just show me the bosses and put me in, coach.

Ada is a legally non-descript protagonist with a design that is essentially a traditionally attractive CGI woman’s face pasted onto a killing machine with a giant robot arm. She’s sorta like Doomfist and D. Va put together, and honestly she sort of plays like it too. That Overwatch shoutout in the title wasn’t just for clicks – the FPS combat feels a lot like Overwatch.

From the “cores” you select for your robo-fist to the weapons and active abilities you pick up, Ada feels like a fleshed-out hero shooter character that you get to customize yourself. I was most surprised by the “keywords” the game doles out like Vibrato and Overdrive – there’s some definite ARPG flavor in here that opens the way for a lot of really cool synergies when things start popping off.

The levels are pretty static — this isn’t exactly a roguelite or anything – but I appreciated that. The map works well, and my chief complaint is that some of the larger arenas can get a bit hide-and-seek with the last enemy or two you need to hunt down.

The robot fist is the best part of Ada’s kit. When an enemy is ready to be finished off, you can slam into them for shield pickups. If that sounds familiar, it is – it’s essentially DOOM Eternal‘s glory kills but with way less downtime. I loved it.

The guns feel great, too. I got my hands on fire pistols and shock rifles, all of which felt like pretty solid Borderlands affairs. But the best part is not needing to worry about ammo since all weapons come with an infinite supply. This is crucial since you’ll be juggling them, your active ability, and your Core abilities to dish out damage and apply debuffs.

I do wish the demo had been a bit longer, or a bit harder, though (no innuendo intended). I blitzed through it in about 20 minutes, but your mileage may vary. Repeat playthroughs are obviously encouraged since you can shape (heh) the way the battle (heh heh) plays out beforehand by choosing run-modifying uh, modifiers. These change what powerups will drop in the rooms ahead, but the area boss will do the same using their retaliation mechanic. The boss I went up against laid mines all over the arena, for example.

I didn’t feel I had enough runway to really get a feel of what Battle Shapers can offer just yet, but from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of love put into the systems at play. I’m sure once levels get a bit more complex all of these mechanics will really have air to breathe.

This preview is based on a pre-release build on PC. Access was provided by Metric Empire.

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