Bullet heaven roguelikes are in vogue now, but somehow, few are taking players to outer space with spaceships full of cannons and other sci-fi weapons. Solo developer Codebrew Software aims to deliver that with Sublight, a new game hitting Steam Early Access on September 15.
More specifically, Sublight tasks us with captaining “a powerful warship” (instead of the typical nimble starfighter) as we blast through waves of enemies. At its core, Codebrew Software has seemingly cooked an old-fashioned top-down shooter, but a tighter loop built around roguelike progression and survivors-like mechanics keeps the very familiar formula modern and fresh.
The warship must push onwards through multiple sectors of space “filled with relentless foes” as we define builds with better laser weapons, turrets, more passive upgrades, and whatnot. And firepower isn’t the only way to survive, as you’ll have to put the ship’s limited manoeuvrability to good use to dodge special attacks and even “ravenous alien swarms”.
The demo available right now on Steam does a solid job of presenting Sublight’s gameplay loop and more unique tricks ahead of the release date. So far, it looks and feels like a lean and mean action game that cuts the fat and is perfect for short play sessions.
Looking at the future, Codebrew expects to develop the action game alongside the community for at least six more months before a 1.0 launch. A roadmap has been promised after its Steam Early Access release, with more enemy factions, ships, weapons, and upgrades in the works.
Pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, but Codebrew says it won’t change with the full release. That said, the launch-day early access build will already feature “two enemy factions spread across six fully finished levels, each with multiple bosses, along with nine playable ships, over 16 weapon types, and an established set of build upgrades to customize your run” as well as “rotating level modifiers”. Support for Steam leaderboards are also included on its Steam page, so it looks like you’ll be able to go competitive from the get-go too.
Sublight is coming to PC only via Steam. Plans for other platforms haven’t been announced at the time of writing.
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