I honestly didn’t expect to be coming back to Mycopunk so soon. Typically, whenever I preview a game, there’s usually a good gap of time in between my initial playtime and a more substantive release. But here we are, a scant three months since I first got a taste of the game’s chaotic fun, and I’m thrown right back into it—which feels somewhat thematically accurate.
It’s pretty amazing how much can change in such a little time. While the preview build I demoed back in April was fairly restrictive—as is usually the case with preview builds—this Early Access release version of Mycopunk really feels as close to a full release as possible. It maintains everything I liked before, but in a much expansive way that really gets its claws into you.
The fundamentals of Mycopunk remain firmly intact in the Early Access version; however, what really hooked me—and was largely absent from my time during the preview—was just how deep the progression and character customization go. In my initial preview, I said of the four playable characters, “while each has a unique ability, they are otherwise functionally similar, except for one crucial difference: movement abilities,” and this was only a half-truth.
“Mycopunk is just an all-around fun game to play.”
While the four robotic “employees” are mostly similar in the way they handle, something I wasn’t aware of was how customizable they have the capacity to become. As players progress through jobs, they will earn experience points, which will allow them to select upgrades that are unique to their character. Once selected, these upgrades need to be equipped on a Resident Evil 4-style hex-grid, adding an extra layer of consideration when choosing how to spec your character.
This extends to weapons as well. During missions, players will both unlock and find upgrades throughout the level that can be applied to specific weapons or their weapon of choice. While these also need to be fitted into the hex-grid, in order to unlock them, players will need a certain amount of resources that can be found throughout each level. I really like how this both incentivizes the use of a preferred weapon, but also perpetuates the gameplay loop as players need to take on more missions in order to become better with their weapon.
“And while Mycopunk is certainly geared towards multiplayer, I was consistently impressed by how well the game works as a single-player experience…”
Another thing that also really opened up from the preview version was the world itself. New Atlas is a wild and dangerous place filled with several unique biomes. Players will battle across a scorching desert, a tundra that’s more mould than snow, and an abandoned city of colossal buildings. Each area provides a different combination of those aforementioned materials, so there’s a good incentive for players to mix up level choices and not get comfortable in an area they like—though that is still definitely a viable option.
And like I mentioned in my preview, Mycopunk is just an all-around fun game to play. Gunplay is fast-paced and fluid, enhanced by the unique mechanic of how hitting enemies with one gun refills ammo for the other. Missions are expansive, and even simple ones like wiping out a certain number of enemies, constantly throw little challenges at you for bonus rewards. And while Mycopunk is certainly geared towards multiplayer, I was consistently impressed by how well the game works as a single-player experience—especially after utilizing the upgrade system.
However, it isn’t without some flaws. The game is in desperate need of a radar, as enemies can spawn from any location and approach pretty silently. It’s easy to lose track of where enemies are coming from amidst all the chaos and leave yourself open to cheap shots. Also, while I do like some of Mycopunk’s more chaotic elements, I do think they can use a bit of tweaking—particularly the game’s physics. Enemies can bounce around, clip through walls and become somewhat harder to manage as they’re not adhering to the same rules of geometry and momentum that the player is.
However, some minor grievances aside, Mycopunk is as fun, if not more fun, now than it was a mere three months ago. Every time I sat down to play it to get some details for writing, I found myself getting lost in it for hours. If you’re a fan of chaotic FPS games like Serious Sam or even DOOM, then you’ll find a lot to love in this techno punk mushroom blaster.
