The cathartic flashes, shakes and audible jingles that accompany an end-game run of a bullet heaven are addicting, and have made survivors-likes a staple in the modern gaming scene. Each has its own take on the genre, R.I.P (Reincarnation Insurance Program) from WarmCore Studio is no different (in that it is, in fact, different).
Vampire Survivors needs an encyclopaedic knowledge of which weapons and equipment merge together, and which weapons scale hardest with each stat. Halls of Torment requires planning for specific objectives, learning the skill paths available to each character to achieve them, sometimes not even caring about finishing the run so long as the quest was complete. Simpler iterations like Spell Brigade focus more on movement, enemy kiting and balancing friendly-fire.
R.I.P needs reactive manual aiming and tactical ability usage. It has all the usual trappings of randomised abilities and ramping enemy waves, but is built more like a “traditional” ARPG experience when it comes to moment-to-moment gameplay. The result is a much more active, involved run that still fits within a survivors-like progression system, and I must say the combination had me hooked.
R.I.P doesn’t waste time getting to the action
You’re thrust into a somewhat off-putting hub area with clunky npc interactions, but it doesn’t take long to muddle through and find the departure menu. Launching at the first of 3 biomes, on the first of six threat levels, your first run begins…
Within moments you’re caught up prioritising targets so explosive enemies die at range, taking in a screenfull of visual information about enemies’ attacks and your own weapon’s projectiles, all the while watching foes smush into paste when one of your level up canisters lands and obliterates them. By the time you get your second level up canister you’ve pressed more buttons and paid more attention to the game than any other survivors-like out there. To some, that might sound like a bad thing. But to a Path of Exile player (Hello) I was enraptured.
The other thing I noticed very early on was the lack of contact damage. Instead, enemies actually have to perform attacks to hit. If that sounds like the game will be a cakewalk then I can assure you the sheer variety of projectile, slam and melee attacks at different speeds actually makes this style of combat just as lethal as contact damage.
That was all within the first ten minutes, which I know because within ten minutes of a run you are greeted with a welcoming “Threat Approaching” message…
It fades out, and a prerendered cutscene (using all that Unreal Engine 5 goodness) plays, introducing something I never expected…
Not only is it a giant enemy spider in a game about zombies, but more importantly this is a bonafide boss battle. The surprise and atmosphere was unparalleled, and the boss fight itself was fun too, almost killing me. Fortunately my active tactical ability in that run was a manually-aimed airstrike so I could deal burst damage reliably even while avoiding most of the spider’s MMO-style attacks. This first boss (Yes, there’s more!) had three types of melee hit, an “escape the arena and attack from above” move and two types of ranged attack. That’s more moves than some Dark Souls bosses!
I left the first boss encounter feeling like this is being made by a team truly making a game that they themselves would love to play.
Active engagement makes you earn the bullet heaven
R.I.P features base weapon aiming (With bonus damage for any enemies sitting directly under your crosshair), grenades and tactical abilities all of which can be manually controlled. This gives you more agency over which enemies you kite and which enemies you burst down with damage, creating new, intuitive strategies that other survivors-likes can’t provide. Rather than an explosive enemy simply being a range check, you can solve that issue any number of ways through dodges, crowd control, or sheer movement speed.
Player choice taken to the max
There’s a multitude of upgrade types, and while some runs you won’t touch a specific type, that just serves to deepen the variety the game offers. These abilities all have different ways of activating or being used, so you can read below to consider which might fit your playstyle best:
Base Weapon. Every character has a weapon type specific to them, and multiple variations within that type can vary your playstyle. There are double-barreled shotguns as well as fully-automatic ones, for example. You start with this weapon and manually aim in, firing with left-click.
Dash. Every character can dash with space, which is used for evasion and traversal. A perfectly timed dash is refunded, which rewards keeping a cool head in a tight situation. Ever been roll-caught by [Redacted] in Elden Ring? You don’t want to be spamming this in a bad situation. You can upgrade the dash to damage enemies in various ways through trails and projectiles.
Throw. Every character begins the run with a basic frag grenade, thrown with right-click. These can be upgraded by level up canisters into various lovely little killing devices such as cluster, frost, shock and poison grenades.
Chase. Your “Chase” abilities are abilities that trigger off of hits or weapon attacks. You don’t manually press a key, they just fire off spikes and missiles and sticky bombs and the like while you lay down the lead.
Tactical Skill. This is your final manually-activated option. Many tacticals are actually self-sufficient and will operate automatically on a cooldown (Rather than on a trigger like a Chase) while others are up to you to find time to aim and release. From targeting a lightning storm to setting the angle of a wall of fire, these abilities are powerful, but take quick-thinking and quicker inputs to pull off perfectly.
Psionics. Psionic abilities are a catch-all for other triggers that aren’t firing your main gun. While Chasers activate off firing, Psionics instead activate off of reloading or taking damage or firing the first bullet of your mag. These are more build-specific, because not all triggers are great for all classes. A rechamber sniper is always on its first shot of the mag, for example…
Auxiliary Weapons. These are drones and turrets and robots that accompany you and fire their weapons automatically. Unlike Chasers or Psionics they don’t need to be triggered, and unlike tacticals they don’t have a cooldown. They just exist and plink away, which can be a nice way to make up for gaps in your build.
Passives. These are permanent effects that don’t “manifest” so-to-speak. Things like an extra 30% damage to frozen enemies or 20% faster movement speed. These can be stacked to 99, which is realistically unlimited.
Limitless combinations presented in a manageable way
Across all of those types there are “Factions”. These are the broad categories you will be offered rewards from such as “Explosive Damage”, “Frost” and “Gunsmith”. Essentially each faction will offer rewards that excel in a specific thing.
It’s quite the feast of ability types, but R.I.P manages to make such a wealth of options never feel overwhelming. Instead, the moment-to-moment gameplay and real-time inputs for dodging, aiming and some attacks means you are always excited to pick certain upgrades and don’t feel you “missed out” by not optimising your loadout to max out with three chasers, three tacticals, three psionics and two auxiliaries. Player skill and reactions can make up for some lost optimisation.
Class-based gameplay that encourages player buildcrafting
Each class finds strengths in different types of abilities, which helps limit the pool of rewards that you care about each run to a more reasonable number. Switching to the sniper class with a rechamber rifle, for example, means fire rate is now pointless – since the weapon reloads after every shot. Reloading after every shot also means Psionic abilities that trigger on reload happen after every single pull of the trigger, making them far more useful to take.
The fact that certain upgrades and abilities are more appealing to different characters stops the game devolving into one single strategy every run. Of course, you could make a Thunderstorm build on any character and bask in unlimited 50K dps cheese, but that’s part of what makes experimenting in a bullet-heaven fun.
Switching characters also suddenly makes all the bosses hard again, instead of blitzing them you re-learn their movements and attacks since the gear and levels on your sniper lady will be pitiful compared to the starter SMG character. Some gear can be transferred between characters, while some pieces are specific, so you don’t start from nothing but you do feel the hit. It’s by no means a negative, though, as working your way up through the ranks with a new character is just as fun as the first time.
Questionable art and clunky menus
The game isn’t without flaws in its Early Access state. The menus can be clunky and there are issues with the Windowed / Fullscreen settings not allowing certain combinations of resolution and V-Sync. There’s also some incredibly sketchy art for some of the armours and weapons that I hope is placeholder, as I played a lot of Halo back in the day and know those helmets when I see them (Yes, even the multiplayer-exclusive unlockable ones from Reach…).
A strong launch into Early Access with ~15 hours of content
Ultimately, all the issues with R.I.P lay outside of an actual run. When you’ve pressed play and you’re in the game for the next 20 minutes, it works like a charm. Finding new abilities, experimenting with playstyles and being surprised by new enemies is all the more engaging thanks to the input-heavy gameplay. I say “input-heavy” a bit tongue-in-cheek as this is still a bullet heaven, so movement + aiming + three activated abilities is actually a huge amount!
I’m also extremely glad I didn’t have to make the same complaint I always have with these kinds of Early Access titles: Variety. R.I.P has a huge amount of that on Threat Level 1, let alone the added enemy types on higher Threat. Bosses also unlock new attacks as Threat increases so you are always facing something that could surprise you. With over 100 challenges to chip away at there’s always an excuse to jump in and blast some zombies, especially if you have your favourite music blasting as you do.
Oh, did I mention there’s two bosses on each map and three total maps, resulting in six unique boss fights that each scale with threat level to add new mechanics?
Honestly, this is one Early Access I hope survives the journey.
R.I.P (Reincarnation Insurance Program) is now available on Steam.
