Streets Of Rogue emerges from early access in search of a hat
I need your hat, your hat and your hat.
After nearly three years of early access evolution (and the occasional wild mutation), Streets Of Rogue is out now. A real passion project by Matt Dabrowski, it's a roguelite immersive sim -- think Deus Ex demade for SNES, or Mega Drive Shadowrun -- for up to four players, local or online. There's a corrupt mayor to be overthrown (by stealing his hat) in a randomly generated multi-level city. Whether the prized chapeau is claimed through guerilla warfare, bribery, gorilla warfare or just zombifying the town is up to you. Below, a sassy but informational launch trailer.
I've never beaten Streets Of Rogue, but I'm always happy to goof around in its cities and see what chaos I can unleash, and maybe unlock a new character or two in the process. There's a huge range of character types, from a literal gorilla to investment banker to a pro wrestler, and they all have their own abilities, perks and play-styles. Or you can just use the character creator to make a monster with every single item, perk and quirk that you've unlocked. Aside from disabling achievements, there's nothing to prevent you going hog wild and 'cheating' to your heart's content.
There's just a huge amount crammed into this game, and the daily run mode with its slew of weird mutators encourages more varied play. Today's challenge seems based on Shiny's semi-failed experiment, Messiah, casting you as a tiny naked person who can possess bodies (if you sneak up behind them) in a world overrun by twitchy super-cops. While the Messiah-inspired shapeshifter is a regular unlockable class, the rest of the modifiers completes the picture. If it combined all of that through sheer random chance? Well, that's another point in Streets Of Rogue's favour.
Streets Of Rogue is out now on Steam for its new launch price of £15.49/€16.79/$19.99, while Humble (which gives you a Steam key anyway) lists the old £11/€15/$15 price at the time of writing. You can see the launch-day patch notes here. It's published by TinyBuild.