Absolum isn't simply the perfect demo on Steam, it's certainly one of my favourite issues I've performed in 2025
Till now I could not determine why Hades, a recreation with 275,000 optimistic opinions piled up on Steam, did not seize me. Seems it is one thing pretty trivial: I dislike controlling a tiny character in an motion recreation.
Absolum takes the “die, retry” format of Hades—its personal subgenre of roguelike at this level—and blends it with the DNA of beat-’em-ups, together with these beneficiant 2D sprites we all know from the ’90s. French builders Guard Crush are the identical individuals who revived Streets of Rage in 2020, however in some way this undertaking exudes much more love than that one, most likely as a result of it is an authentic world they created from scratch.
The medieval fantasy realm, Talamh, is a spot the place magic is outlawed and mages are persecuted by a villain named Azra the Conqueror. The three playable characters are a few of the few surviving mages left. Absolum’s Steam Subsequent Fest demo, which incorporates on-line co-op, options the total forged: Karl the dwarf, a short-armed bruiser who knocks with knuckles, Galandra, whose heavy sword has extra attain, and Cider, whose nimbler preventing fashion lends itself to aerial combos.
What excites me about Absolum is that it ought to ship the replayability that beat-’em-ups classically lack. Like Hades, Absolum is punctuated with A-or-B choices between means upgrades known as Rituals. One in all these elemental crystals granted my primary strikes fireplace harm over time, one other made my assaults generate static electrical energy that might finally be discharged in a sequence lightning bolt, and one other spawned tornadoes that juggled enemies.
The upper-tier upgrades, Inspirations, are awarded after boss fights. A few of these unlock new strikes solely, like a dive kick for Galandra that I loved spamming, or the power to cling to partitions. And laid into this technique are the everlasting upgrades you should purchase with foreign money, elevating your baseline well being, situational harm, or granting different advantages.
My a number of playthroughs have altered the world in small ways in which create a way of progress. The demo confirmed a few secret rooms which have an opportunity of showing, and, on an even bigger scale, forks in the principle path. The primary zone splits towards a seashore dotted with offended sea snails or a crimson forest goblin camp. Different elements of the map open up over time, like a gate that may be opened within the demo, behind which you discover a group of mercenaries chatting. Crucially, completely different enemy configurations can spawn in the identical space while you cross by way of it once more in one other run.
Mashing with a objective
I like how impactful and percussive Absolum’s fight feels. The 2-button setup (gentle and heavy assault, plus dodge) streamlines preventing, however excellent presentation makes your easy inputs really feel fierce.
Even after I’m simply tapping the fundamental assault again and again, every hit is registered clearly by the sound design, making them individually felt. Frequent freeze frames offer you home windows of time to absorb the harm you are dealing. Enemies are sometimes punted across the display by your assaults, rebounding off the sting of the display like pinballs reasonably than being thrown out of view.
So this can be a much less technical beat-’em-up than Streets of Rage 4, one thing that the developer says is an intentional response to their earlier recreation. “After we had been showcasing SOR4 to folks at varied occasions, I spotted that though it was a well known sequence, I needed to clarify to folks quite a lot of inputs and ideas like blitz assault (ahead, ahead + assault), grabs or life-costing particular strikes,” Jordi Asensio, head of recreation design at Guard Crush, informed me by way of e mail.
“I additionally noticed that folks had been searching for a option to defend themselves, and in SOR4 it is vitally natural; you progress outdoors of the enemy’s assault vary, otherwise you use an assault with invincibility frames. So with Absolum, I needed to keep away from these frictions, beginning characters with easier transfer units (giving extra sophisticated strikes afterward, when the participant has a agency grasp of the gameplay). The fight system will get deeper this fashion, nevertheless it begins smaller and it’s simpler to get in,” Asensio says.
The collision logic is one other satisfying element. Enemies generally line up into these handy balls of overlapping hitboxes, making every assault really feel like a small jackpot of environment friendly harm. Even in crowded moments like this, I by no means overpassed what I used to be doing or was simply button mashing my means out of hazard.
I ate the entire Absolum demo up in a single sitting with a good friend. The issue was excellent. We had been stunned when our third playthrough of an space revealed completely different enemies. The music is one other excessive level, expensive-sounding medieval mixes with moments that diverge from that fashion, like heavy steel that kicks up throughout a boss battle within the mines. It is a group that deeply understands its style, and appears to be delivering one of many best-yet iterations on it by baking within the replayability of Hades.