The sleeper-hit senses are tingling on this one. We hadn’t heard much about Star Renegades until the press release and trailer landed in our inbox, but we’re belatedly excited about it. Star Renegades ticks all of the early-hype boxes: it’s fantastically good-looking, it comes with plaudits from across the industry, and it mixes up some fantastic genres that were great even before they were stapled together. This one could be really good.
Star Renegades is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Game Pass, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam, with a PS4/PS5 launch just around the corner.
Let’s start with those plaudits. This has been on PC for some time now, and it’s been garlanded with enough high-mark reviews to make a big deal about, and Massive Damage Games duly puts the scores at the front of their press release and trailer. It’s sitting on a Metacritic of 76, which is a nudge lower, but clearly there are a lot of reviewers who enjoyed their time with this one.
Having personally enjoyed Foregone recently, Star Renegades does a similar job of using animation and elaborate environments to make pixel-art look wondrous. This is a very good-looking game, and the bosses in particular (if they are bosses – who knows when it comes to science fiction settings) look daunting.
FInally, this puts a tick against almost every in-vogue genre at the moment. It’s a turn-based tactics game, when some of the best titles of the year have been in the same genre, while it borrows some deck-building mechanics from Slay the Spire and the like. It’s also a procedurally generated rogue-lite, which completes the keyword bingo.
We jest of course, as Star Renegades is right up our space-alley. It looks like the universe is rich in storytelling, and the production quality is exceptionally high. Let’s hope that it meets those expectations.
Features include:
- • Outwit your foes with interrupts, counters, and combos in our fast-paced Reactive Time Battle System
- • Survive the relentless onslaught of an Intelligent Adversary system that generates unique enemies and bosses that evolve as you play
- • Unlock dozens of alternate characters as your surviving squad members form bonds and create progeny
- • Battle your way into the heart of the Imperium as our Rebellion Engine creates a unique experience with each playthrough via emergent gameplay and events, procedurally generated missions, shifting priorities, evolving enemies, and tons of equipment/upgrades for your squad
Star Renegades is out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X and starts at £19.99 from the Xbox Store, or alternatively via Xbox Game Pass. It’s also out on Nintendo Switch and PC, whilst a drop on PS4/PS5 is due come November 25th.
Game Description:
RESIST. RECLAIM. SURVIVE. REPEAT A service robot named J5T-1N has arrived in your dimension to warn of impending doom from an overwhelming force known as the Imperium. Fight for survival across a procedurally generated and emergent mission-based campaign through reactive, tactical turn-based battle system that emphasizes interrupts and counters. Standing in your way is an intelligent Adversary system with enemy officers that evolve and move up in the ranks. As your band of heroes fall in the fight against invading Imperium and hope is all but lost, J5T-1N must be sent to the next dimension with everything you’ve learned to give the next group of heroes a chance to prevail. Each dimension, and each playthrough is unique, challenging, and never the same.
