Cyberpunk-themed games seem to be popping up everywhere lately but none that I have seen so far offer that classic birds-eye-view way of gameplay. Enter Daedalic Entertainment and Dark Lord’s Glitchpunk, the edgy and gritty top-down open-world shooter that takes everything you’ve loved from classic GTA (Grand Theft Auto) games and dresses it up in a cybernetic finish. While I was gitty with joy to try this one, unfortunately, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Gameplay

As far as Glitchpunk goes, it is the tried and true formula of the early GTA games. The devs were transparent on that from the beginning and it’s something that I liked as it felt familiar yet not overused. Hilarious radio stations, garages to take away your wanted level, and driving that can be both fun and incredibly irritating. What can go wrong?

That isn’t to say that the devs haven’t injected their own personality into this title though. Glitchpunk has a story that changes as you play and increases relationships with rival gangs. Rub elbows with one too much and another could get upset with you. It’s cool to see that the storyline is everchanging, offering different scenarios.

There are some other ways the game differs from its muse as well. Like the fact that you can play as a female, and you can add cybernetic modifications to your character. These enhancements give you all kinds of different buffs or abilities, one being the hacking skill which allows you to tap into an enemy’s mind and mess with them. It’s some RPG aspects that help make the game feel less static.

While I had some positive things to say about Glitchpunk, there are just as many if not more negatives. To start, I encountered framerate issues throughout my entire playthrough, textures that were basically non-existent, game crashes, and some sequences where the game just felt broken. I wish that the devs spent a little more time making sure the game was at least stable before putting it out there.

One time, I died because I was trapped between two cars and had both gang members and cops fighting me. On top of that, the vehicles were also draining my health as well because it was registering them as hitting me. It’s times like this that show just how hollow the gameplay can be due to its poor optimization.

I also noticed that there isn’t a GPS or a ping function to use with your map. It was difficult to try and traverse the city streets when I couldn’t tell where something specifically was. It’s just messy in that aspect. Most things look similar to each other too which can lead to you driving into something that looks like a tunnel but turns out to be a wall. I also found issues with vehicles. Driving them was fine but if I got out and the car was slightly rolling, I’d get thrown across the street and lose health. It was extremely weird.

The game offers partial controller support but I think they’re being a little too generous with that term. It just felt like it had to either be integrated better or not at all. One oversight I found that the devs made was the fact that the “skip dialogue” button and the “change radio station” button are both mapped to the same key. Say you were driving in the car and wanted to turn off the radio because a character was talking, you’d just skip their dialogue altogether.

Expectations

I’d hope that Dark Lord is working to iron out the heavy kins that hold back this game sooner rather than later. It’s a shame that it’s in such a state because I can see what it has to offer underneath its shabby exterior. Only time will tell how proactive and passionate the devs are about getting this thing running correctly.

Verdict

While Glitchpunk shows the making of a great title, it totally lacks any real intrigue due to its currently poor optimization and broken gameplay. This is a title I’d take another look at in six months to see how far the devs have come. Until then I’d say, weigh your options.