It’s always interesting to see a prequel do a genre pivot, but it’s rare to see one pivot to a somewhat different subgenre instead. Sprawl was made in the mold of boomer shooters like Quake, albeit combining it with a far more modern parkour FPS. Sprawl Zero, on the other hand, throws that completely out the window for a tighter, more engaging game all around.
While Sprawl put players in the shoes of the seventh member of the Reaper squad, Sprawl Zero’s protagonist is the fifth. You really don’t need to be familiar with the previous game to follow things here, although the lore is still surprisingly decent (even if it leans too hard on Warhammer 40k tropes). As such, this definitely functions just fine as a standalone title.
Unlike its predecessor, you can no longer wallrun or carry an arsenal of weapons. Instead, you’ll almost always be grounded and weapons must be picked up in the field. Each gun has a very finite amount of ammunition and, once it’s empty, you’ll need to source your next one from a defeated enemy or a crate. It reminds me a lot of Severed Steel, which is a favorite of mine.
As such, the gameplay here is quite intense. The game’s levels are generally linear or have three interchangeable objectives you can do in any order, such as finding keycodes to disarm a nuke or destroying a few installations. You can pull up a beacon telling you exactly where to go too, which is often necessary in the more open levels.
While I mostly found the art direction in Sprawl to be monotonous and too rusty for its own good, this game’s environments are far more varied and make much better use of color. I was worried early on that the gameplay itself would grow stale quickly due to the nature of the weapon system and the lesser mobility options, but the game does a good job of keeping things consistently interesting. There are even three different enemy factions.
The shooting itself feels damn good, with a wide variety of weapons that result in enemies getting viciously blown into bloody chunks. You have a slow melee attack that shocks foes and carries an appropriately powerful feeling of force that’s fun to make use of as well. All guns belong to tiers, which mostly just exists to give you a visual indicator of what to pick up, so this works well too.
Your character has several abilities to make things easier, including bullet time, a shield that can throw bullets back at foes, and a rushdown mode that lets you dash at an enemy and punch them with no wind up. All of that is governed by your adrenaline meter, which refills to half as soon as it's emptied. All of this leads to tense, frenzied firefights that stay engaging throughout.
Sprawl Zero does have its issues, however. I’ve had enemies get stuck in walls as well as having to restart from a checkpoint because something wouldn’t trigger. The difficulty curve is also shockingly bad in spots, as the game will let you tear through it with ease before requiring you to memorize every facet of a cheap encounter just to win. A section with tedious snipers and the final boss encounter (which features a grab that nearly kills you) both stick out in this way.
Verdict
Despite a few frustrations, Sprawl Zero is a very good shooter. You can find collectibles to unlock relics that make things tougher, as well as cheats that also change things up a fair amount, although the lack of additional challenges or a survival arena is a miss. Still, the game is easy to recommend to anyone who enjoys blasting foes to pieces with overpowered abilities.
