METAL EDEN PREVIEW
In a gaming landscape filled with 100+ hour open-world RPGs and GaaS time sinks, returning to something a little more straight-forward (i.e. shoot everything) is one of my favourite pastimes.
Metal Eden, the new sci-fi first person shooter (FPS) from developer Reikon, complete with agile androids, mysterious mecha troops and a brutalist industrial setting, was right on time.
The team at ImpulseGamer was fortunate to get Early Access to check out Metal Eden ahead of its reveal at Sony’s 2025 State of Play, and my early impression is we have a promising new IP to look forward to in May, if you’re fan of fast-paced run-and-guns like Doom 2016 or Titanfall.
I had access to the first two missions of Metal Eden for preview, and it’s immediately apparent that this is a game that leans heavily into nonlinear storytelling and futuristic themes mixed with high-octane, action shooter combat gameplay. You’re dropped into an artificially-created city called Moebius in the role of Hyper Unit ASKA, an advanced combat android who resembles a human woman. ASKA apparently has the implanted memories of a real person, as lore in the loading screens establish that people in this future have invented technology called CORE to digitize the human psyche.
Of course, all doesn’t seem well, and it’s safe to assume by the brooding, mysterious voice in ASKA’s head named Nexus (who sounds very much like stalwart gaming voice actor Liam O’Brien) guiding her toward Moebius to fight against the Internal Defence Corps to “set the citizens free” while teasing the history behind what happened there and something called Project Eden, that there is an intriguing mystery to unfold in the full game.
For the purposes of this preview, though, clarity on the wider lore and narrative naturally takes a backseat to the gameplay, which I enjoyed immensely. This is a first-person shooter that blends speed, parkour and fast-flowing combat and produces a formula that quickly clicks in place. ASKA is incredibly agile, with several movement options such as wall running, dodging and gliding to quickly navigate through each battle arena you encounter, where hostile enemies swarm the area in set waves, and you’re prevented from proceeding until they are defeated.
Starting off with a basic pistol side-arm and sub-machine gun with thermal-based ammo, the shooting feels satisfying, but it’s the ‘Core’ mechanic that truly keeps the gunplay and enemy dispatching entertaining. Each enemy has a ‘Core’ that can be extracted by ASKA in the midst of combat – quite brutally – and you gain one of two benefits. The first is that cores can act as a weapon and be thrown back at an enemy to hurt them and spawn extra ammo drops, which, in the heat of the moment, can prove very useful when ammo is low. The second benefit is cores can be absorbed to enable ASKA to gain health and use her super punch ability to break through the armour of sub-boss enemies that can’t be killed with normal arms fire or melee. Defeating enemies earns ASKA a currency called DUST, which can be used for upgrades.
The result of this basic gameplay loop is a chaotic dance of maneuvering around the futuristic battlefield and frantically dodging equally agile cybernetic enemies, ranging from part flesh, part robot grunts, shielded brutes, and annoying flying drones and balancing your ammo, super punch and core ripping abilities to outlast their brutal assaults. And yes, the core ripping is limited by a modest cooldown meter, so it is most effective when you time its use properly.
The first level admittedly was hard to follow in terms of the story setup and general flow, but the second level definitely showed off the full promise of Metal Eden in both the gameplay and narrative departments. By the end of this section, I got to use an additional two weapons, a futuristic pump action shotgun with a very satisfying kick and a monstrous laser gatling gun/turret which unleashed hell on ASKA’s foes, and I also got a chance to see the game’s weapon and skills upgrade systems, which is available at certain stages of each level.
For weapons, the PIG Shop acts as a hub to upgrade ASKA’s guns with passive perks and alternate fire options; for my preview, I purchased a passive ability for the sub machine-gun and an alternate fire mode for the shotgun to unleash three charged shots in a row, which allowed me to unleash a new level of fast-paced carnage in the level’s final arenas, and even changed the gun’s model appearance to an entirely different colour and brand, which is a cool touch.
ASKA’s skill tree, meanwhile, is centered around the Core system, branching off into three different sub-categories that upgrade her Core ripping, Core power and bodysuit, respectively. Unfortunately, my preview build froze right at the end of the second level before I could test out the Vampiric Punch ability I chose to unlock, but I am definitely intrigued by the systems shown and how they tie into the straightforward but satisfying fast-paced combat systems.
I think the main appeal and surprise behind my time with Metal Eden is the high-quality, high-fidelity visuals. Clearly, developer Reikon and their publisher have received a decent budget to render its bleak industrial world and cyberpunk aesthetic in great detail, though I shouldn’t have been surprised given the talent behind the developers behind Ruiner, whose founding ranks include veterans from CD Project Red (Cyberpunk 2077) and Techland (Dying Light). Both the pre-rendered cinematic cutscenes introducing ASKA and the real-time 3D environments display an impressive level of visual detail, from textures, lighting, shadows and character and weapon models, and combined with its sleek, realistic, futuristic art style, Metal Eden is definitely one of the better looking games in this early year release schedule. You would hope so, as it uses Unreal Engine 5!
Playing on a PC armed with the now 6-year old Ryzen 3600 CPU and NVIDIA’s still capable RTX 3060 TI GPU, I was able to play Metal Eden at a mostly locked 60fps with a mix of medium and high video settings and DLSS set to ‘Quality’ (scaling down from 1440p). There were a lot of fluctuations and stutters in performance when I tweaked things higher and some oddities with visual elements displayed in the settings, but at least for this preview build, Metal Eden was pretty solid on the technical front. My one minor concern is that gamepad support was lacking here, as I was unable to play with my Xbox controller due to inputs not registering.
Thoughts So Far?
Reikon Games has definitely been cooking with Metal Eden and my short play-time with the preview build has left me very impressed. It’s clear the team are passionate and confident, especially with their surprise reveal of the game at Sony’s February State of Play event, and I think anyone craving a sci-fi FPS or enjoys high-octane, fast and frantic action games need to put this title on their radar.
About the Author
Nathan Misa A senior writer for ImpulseGamer.com and former writer for MMGN and Ninemsn, Nathan has been reviewing video games and interviewing talented developers since 2012. As a nostalgia tragic eternally tied to the glorious 1990s, he's always playing retro gaming classics whenever he's not entrenched in the latest RPG, or talking your ear off about why The First Law book series is better than Game of Thrones - to anyone who dares listen.
Related Posts
Game Beauty Announces Limited Edition Collection with Capcom →
Nightdive Studios Reintroduces System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster →
Razer x Faker 10 Year Anniversary Event on February 25 | Razer ANZ →
