A faceless soldier awakes from cryosleep, suspiciously missing all of his memories as he is given a simple task: survive. This is how the retro-inspired FPS roguelike Moros Protocol begins, pointing us towards the nearest enemies so we can delight ourselves in some crunchy, old-school violence.
Our adventure takes place aboard the Orpheus, a lost spaceship drifting through space. The situation is dire by itself, and things only get worse as we start to encounter an overwhelming amount of fleshy monstrosities, as well as a cult led by a surprisingly curvy swordswoman.
System Shock’s Roguelike Cousin
Moros Protocol is split into three different chapters with three bosses each, which can be started separately as different runs. Runs can go on for quite a while depending on how much of the map you feel like exploring, so it’s nice that the game isn’t one huge endurance run and can be tackled in a more bite-sized manner.
The game’s boss encounters are definitely a highlight of the experience, capping off each chapter with some surprisingly large set pieces, as well as different mechanics that make them engaging to fight against even in repeat runs. Despite being seemingly inspired by turbo-fast titles like Ultrakill, the developers manage to respect the game’s pacing, finding a good way to preserve the spectacle without giving the player whiplash.
Die, Cryosleep, Repeat
As a roguelike, Moros Protocol does a lot of things really well, like having a good bit of its weapon and augment pool unlocked from the get-go, so you won’t have your early runs cut short just for the sake of artificially extending the game’s playtime, a common crime amongst modern roguelikes.
The game is definitely rougher early on, as you won’t have any stamina, health, or syringe upgrades, but the difficulty evens out after a couple of runs, thanks to the frictionless meta progression system that happens to be surprisingly generous, as you’ll always be able to buy a couple of upgrades after finishing a run.
Most of the mid-game randomization comes in the form of augments, which are split into two different categories, those being the ones that slot into your armor and the ones that slot into your guns. Even though there are some duds here and there, most of the augments manage to make a difference in how you play the game and are immediately felt as you equip them, like Run n Gun, which rewards you for being mobile with a substantial amount of extra damage, or Conditioning, which encourages a pure melee playstyle in exchange for extra stamina.
Final Thoughts
Moros Protocol scratches the itch for a sci-fi roguelike quite well, slowly introducing weirder weapons as we progress through the game while featuring some genuinely impressive set pieces for its boss fights, as well as a very unique art style thanks to its texture-painted low-poly models.
Overall, I see Moros Protocol as a fun experiment. I wouldn’t call it the most replayable roguelike out there, because it features a very limited amount of mid-run randomization, but the atmosphere and combat carry it quite far, showing us that Pixel Reign can craft a fun single-player experience, even if it falls short in some aspects.
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