REVIEW — The Ascent

If you want to inject your life with more Cyberpunk, this has exceptional world-building, gorgeous design, and a fun isometric combat loop with light RPG elements. I couldn’t put it down. NameBrand

The Ascent is a sleeper hit. I honestly truly believe that! It’s got its quirks and it absolutely has some rough edges, but I had such a good time in it, that I really hope that there’s more of this universe in the future. Maybe not just in DLC, but a full-on sequel, complete with sequel levels of polish and change. As I go over the elements in the game I think it’ll be pretty clear as to why I think that is.

I’m a huge fan of the majority of the world-building. Of course, it makes sense that a Cyberpunk dystopian landscape would exist in a futuristic sci-fi ‘beyond earth’ kind of setting! And it's done so well too. The alien designs are interesting, and the lore behind the enemies and the areas was good enough that I read it all and thought everything was extremely cohesive… except maybe the voices that came out of some of these creatures, they sounded a little too human for me… but beyond that, this world-building felt like some kind of twisted cousin of Mass Effect. Super here for it. The environments being incredibly detailed and have their place in the lore also helped with the environmental storytelling and just gave me something cool to look at most of the time.