RIPOUT is a co-op first-person shooter from developer Pet Project Games. Offering a unique take on sci-fi horror, RIPOUT blends a few genres in this jump scare-driven, procedurally generated shooter. With some unique mechanics, crafting and a mission-driven approach, RIPOUT sets its sights on creating a unique and replayable gaming experience.
The story is set in the year 2084. During a losing war against an alien foe, humanity attempts to engineer a bioweapon that eventually takes a devastating toll on its creators. Leaning hard into its sci-fi setting the player awakes on a derelict ship as one of the last surviving soldiers in a losing war. Tasked with finding and saving what is left of humanity, the player must explore abandoned ships and stations to find any trace of what is left of Earth’s survivors.
Narrative delivery is told through a mix of motion graphics cut scenes with voice-over and in-game voice-over via your ship’s onboard AI. While the narrative gives some context to the world and environment, the player will experience and justification for the horrifying enemies you’ll encounter. It’s more for justifying the setting than the main driver of the experience.
RIPOUT is squarely set in a dark and horrific sci-fi universe. Beautifully designed ship interiors await the player as they venture into the unknown. Dark corridors mixed with dramatic lighting help create a sense of dread and horror as you explore RIPOUT’s procedurally generated missions.
“RIPOUT is at its best as a horror shooter, and at this, it excels.”
RIPOUT offers a unique and distinct art style that feels original and fresh. Blending biological and mechanical into both settings and enemies creates a wonderfully gruesome and twisted take on a dystopian future. While it is distinct in its design and art style, RIPOUT does share some similarities with titles such as Dead Space or DOOM Eternal. This is not a critique by any means. RIPOUT’s setting and enemies create a universe that begs players to ask the age-old question, “What happened here?”.
There is one mechanic as it relates to setting and design that detracts from the otherwise impressive world-building, namely procedural level generation. The procedurally generated level design is quite lacklustre and feels more rouge-lite than a shooter. At release, there is a lack of level diversity both in layout and tile set. Every mission feels essentially the same.
While the layouts vary to some degree, it always seems like you are traversing the same corridors, exploring the same open spaces and moving through the same basic ships. While the tile sets are impressive and generate the above-mentioned feelings the first few times out, after several missions, they all sort of blend together.
More map diversity and varied tile sets would greatly improve the mission experience. Seeing fresh settings and locations would help create a much more engaging world for players to explore, which is important because the core mechanics of RIPOUT are excellent. They are simply hampered by a lack of level variety at the moment.
“RIPOUT’s setting and enemies create a universe that begs players to ask the age-old question, “What happened here?”.”
Speaking of core mechanics, RIPOUT is at its best as a horror shooter, and at this, it excels. Combat is smooth, fluid and fast. Encounters can quickly move from manageable to mayhem in mere seconds. It requires players to remain alert and ready for whatever comes running at them next. RIPOUT also offers players a unique set of weapons to take on the many foes encountered on missions. From a vast selection of Melee and ranged weapons, players will be able to craft and kit themselves out to the playstyle that best suits them.
One mechanic that is an extension of weapons comes in the form of the Pet Gun companion. It’s best described as a pet that lives on the bottom of your primary weapon. With it, players can scan the environment to identify enemies and points of interest, send it to lunge at and attack enemies and even have it retrieve temporary abilities for the player. It is by far one of the more unique mechanics I’ve come across in an FPS, but it works well in RIPOUT’s sci-fi, bio-mechanical horror setting.
On that note of temporary abilities, this is another element of RIPOUT that makes it feel more in line with a rouge lite than a traditional shooter. Throughout a mission, players can accumulate two types of temporary upgrades. They come in two forms: temporary attachments and mission-long buffs.
The first, temporary attachments, are gained by sending your companion out to attack specific enemy types that yield an attachment. While there is a variety to obtain (shield, snare, firepower, to name a few), all have a very limited ammo or energy reserve and constantly need to be obtained. It’s a fun mechanic that can turn the tide of an encounter and offer a variety of combat options on the fly.
The second, mission-long buffs, are gathered by powering up upgrade stations around the various environments. At each station, players can choose from one of three randomly selected upgrades that will remain with them until the end of the mission run. They come in many forms, such as reload speed increase, pet damage and health boosts, with them all working to aid the player in some form. This creates a unique playthrough each time by offering players different advantages while on a mission.
The other major mechanic that adds some depth to RIPOUTs game loop is a crafting system. While on a mission, players will collect various resources that can then be used to craft everything from weapons to mods to armour. All of these are permanent and can swapped out between missions to help cater to whichever encounter you want to embark on.
While the system is straightforward to use and does offer some helpful upgrades along the way, in its present state it could use some polish. Resource collection is quite grind-heavy at the moment, with multiple runs being necessary to craft meaningful upgrades. Additionally, major resources only seem to be collected on mission completion, so if you die while on mission, you gain nothing impactful. While this might not seem like a big issue, there is a bit of a disparity with difficulty scaling at the moment.
“If Pet Project Games continues to listen to player feedback and polish some of those rough edges, I believe RIPOUT will be a title to keep coming back to.”
RIPOUT is best played in a co-op, with the difficulty being manageable. It’s tough but doable with two or more players. RIPOUT works exceptionally well as a co-op shooter, offering some fun opportunities for building diversity that helps build a cohesive, interdependent team dynamic. It’s fun and engaging.
The single-player experience, however, feels a bit unbalanced at the moment. The difficulty feels scaled for at least two players, which means that often, that shift from manageable to mayhem happens with little or no opportunity to recover. Often, larger enemies can two or three-shot the player with little warning. Health packs are scarce at the best of times, and even with mods to help generate more ammo and health on pet return, more times than not, the enemies simply overwhelm the player.
While a tough game is always welcome, because of the resource collection issue mentioned earlier, players will often be stuck grinding the same side missions for a long time before being able to upgrade enough to engage in the next progression mission. It becomes a slog to push through repeating the same side quests in the hopes of collecting enough materials to upgrade a gun or armour so you can move forward. Adjusting the single-player difficulty would offer better pacing to the overall experience.
At its core, RIPOUT is a solid shooter with a unique and interesting setting. The combat loop is fun at the best of times, but because of some poor balancing, it can leave solo players feeling stuck and frustrated. Lacklustre level diversity and grind-heavy crafting mechanics currently hold RIPOUT from being a top-tier FPS. However, all the right elements are there to make RIPOUT an excellent game with plenty of replayability. If Pet Project Games continues to listen to player feedback and polish some of those rough edges, I believe RIPOUT will be a title to keep coming back to.
