A Decent into Cyber-Bugs
Much like its streets and alleyways, filled with trash and neon spectacle, The Ascent lives in both of these worlds. It can often be buggy and have a few oddly implemented and hollow systems, and yet be incredibly engaging, fast-paced in its combat, and utterly beautiful. Had the game seen even a small delay to fix many of its launch issues and adjust many of its deeper systems to feel more worthwhile, I’d have a strong case for this to be a contender for my game of the year, but sadly, this dream game of mine just suffers too much in the end and while I absolutely adore it, a post-game bug simply broke my heart.
I’ve wanted a sequel to The Ruiner for years, it’s one of my favorite games ever made and upon seeing The Ascent for the first time last year, it felt like the closest I’d get to see that dream fulfilled. An isometric RPG shooter in a cyberpunk world? Sign me the hell up. While Cyberpunk 2077 did a great job at building its Night City, despite the game’s widespread technical issues, The Ascent’s world of Veles is my ideal cyberpunk domain as it’s packed to the brim with all of the genre’s aesthetic hallmarks, both gritty and overwhelming in its incredibly dense detail. I never once was bored of its world, its level design, or the painstaking detail of its massive vistas. Looking over the railing to see its expansive backdrops never once lost its luster, making for one of the best looking games in recent memory, at least from the viewpoint of its gameplay anyway. Exploring does have certain limitations locked to story progress, but I marveled at how often I would encounter so many rich locations as I would explore off the beaten path. Would I get lost? Oh yes, frequently, but I relished in the discoveries of how to navigate this maze of filth and spectacle.
Now, I want to stress something first, I really enjoyed my playthrough of Ascent, which was 100% solo and while I dipped into a few friend’s games to take part in co-op, I’ll state that many of the game’s issues and technical problems existed almost entirely when I played online. During my solo time, I had a few sound issues; some repeated audio ticking that lasted until I reloaded the game, or died, or the collective sound of gun battles that would often flood my headphones when I was just walking around a peaceful district block. I never had the game crash on me offline, any quests bug out in a way where I couldn’t complete them, or lose any of my items upon loading into the game. My time online; however, is a very different story altogether. Playing online is what broke me, what took a game I was all set to score around an 8.5, possibly a 9, and well, into what I’ve scored it now. Playing online had me constantly failing to load into my friend’s game, and even when I did, I would often get stuck in menus or be unable to use certain buttons within them. I would have to shut off tutorials numerous times despite my setting being turned off, and every one of my items, augments, or missions, would flash up as “new”, making me flip through my menus so I could tick them off in case I discovered anything that was actually new. This happened every single time I joined someone else’s game, even when I would disconnect and rejoin. Every. Single. Time.
But, it was when I tried to join my first four-player game where it all went horribly wrong. Not only did I have to fight to even get into the game for nearly 20 minutes, but when I did, I lost all my equipped items, which I then had to BUY again, costing me around 140k. However, since I had around 1.1 million Ucreds at the time, I wasn’t too mad about that particular issue. But my Cyberdeck, which allows me to open locked doors and chests, and hack vending machines, was simply gone. Now, it wasn’t so much that I had to re-equip it again like my augments, no, it was just… not there. Since it was maxed out, something that is required to do to get into some of the later areas, I am unable to fix this as even though there are extra’s in my game laying about, or jumping into a friend’s game to collect more; when you max it out, it prevents you from picking those extra’s up, thus, I am screwed out progressing more in my offline game. Despite NOT having one equipped anymore, the game still recognizes me as having it maxed, but do the doors and chests and vending machines that I can hack have that same mindset? Nope. My character as a solo explorer is now done.
This soured my experience to a point where I don’t know if I even want to play the game again, even in co-op where my friends can perform those hacks instead of me. 30 hours of progress has now meant nothing in my post-game as I was traveling about cleaning up all the remaining collectibles that I missed. If they release new content or an expansion pack, I’m going to have to make a whole new character unless it’s patched. While there is a patch dropping soon, it doesn’t seem to address “missing” Cyberdecks, so who knows if my issue will go away once this Patch is certified through Xbox. Regardless if it does, my experience at launch is what my review is based upon, not what could be or what will eventually be down the road. Will this happen to you? Hard to say, but since it’s happened to me, it can happen to anyone, I guess. Even one of my friends is unsure about playing co-op till my particular issue is addressed, fearful that their progress will get wiped before they have a chance to even beat the game. Apart from seeing your character deleted, which is also known to be happening, losing your cyberdeck is the next worst thing that can happen in this game as it cannot simply be purchased again from any store. If you lose it due to this glitch, you’re done as a solo player unless you start over or take the rest of your game online with a friend or two.
Up until that point, I would sing this game’s praises, and in some ways, I still sort of do. The Ascent is a damn good game, one of the best I’ve played this year. The combat and style this game has is remarkable for such a small team to have pulled off. The detail in not just the layout, but in the density of that design can be overwhelming at times, but it lends itself to the chaotic neon-punk nature of what Veles offers. While it’s easy to get lost early on, it’s a city that you’ll learn the in’s and out’s of in no time. While you’ll eventually unlock fast-travel, hoofing it instead meant that I could possibly encounter targets with a bounty attached to them, chests I could open, or doors that were previously locked to me. There are some zones where the walking can get a bit tedious, but the biggest issue with exploring is that the map you can bring up feels like getting directions off a child’s placemat at a Denny’s when you visit some tourist resort. It’s wildly unreliable as it does little to actually explain how you’ll get where you need to go. 3D maps have often been cumbersome in the past, but some games have really pulled them off well, so it’s not impossible to think that Neon Giant could have done better here.
The Ascent has you enter into its story as an Indent, short for Indentured, as you find yourself working for a scumlord named Poone, a character that I was all set to write off as being a typical generic character until his smart writing and well-toned voice acting really sold him on me. Does he have some generic traits? Sure, but while he has some been-there-done-that dialogue, you get a good idea that he really wants what’s best for the people. I also enjoyed Noghead, even if he ends up saying a lot of obvious dialogue that you truly see coming. Otherwise, the game is very light on additional characters. You have a few more than show up, and several others that are part of side quests, as well as a villain that is so blink-and-you-miss-it in the final battle that I wondered why they were even there. The post-credits scene does lead you to assume we’ll have a sequel, but it features characters that are introduced after the fact, so it’s hard to really get pumped for the next game on a narrative level. The core story is wondering what happened to the Ascent Group, an organization that was technically running things on Veles, only to dive into a conspiracy of what happened to them and who has taken their place. It’s not a bad story per se, but the way in which it is told is simply not as satisfying as developer Neon Giant was likely shooting for. Part of why a story can be so memorable is in its execution and its cast of characters, and The Ascent doesn’t quite nail the landing, despite a few things it does do right.
Adding to that story, you’ll also have just under 30 side quests, even if 4-5 of them are just delivering money across a few environments. Others will have you delivering muscle stimulants, testicles from a savage race of sewer creatures, or finding lost luggage in a crowded airport. Sure, none of these quests feel particularly important or push any aspect of the main story forward, but the rewards are often pretty enjoyable augments that give you a variety of new abilities. I found a few side quests to bug out as well as while I could still fully complete them eventually, the objective marker wouldn’t always lead me to the target or I’d see the side quest icon present in a location but not actually have a side quest there for me. I ended up figuring out that a future quest that I hadn’t found yet would lead me to this spot, such as delivering money to where one of the icons had been all along. Some quests will also lead you into areas that you haven’t unlocked yet, but you won’t have this information and will often sit there wondering if the elevator or area is bugged. I ended up having to google if I was doing something wrong, only to find out that I couldn’t do that quest yet, despite the game not telling me or really even hinting at it. A bit of advice; wait until you can go to the Dream World club before tackling many of these additional expeditions as, by that point, you’ll have a few more areas explorable.
The combat of the Ascent is where most of your time will be spent, twin-stick shooting your way through a variety of humans, robots, and subterranean creatures alongside a variety of augments that grant you special abilities. Unlike most twin-stick shooters, aiming and shooting is only part of the play here as you can duck, take cover, and use the Left Trigger to raise your gun over that cover. At first, I wasn’t able to hit anything because I had assumed the left trigger was how you precisely aimed, as my bullets would fly overhead of the creatures you first encounter. Just aiming with the right stick and shooting allows you to hit anything waist down, making your foes explode into a mist of blood and limbs. This ability to raise the gun up works great, especially behind cover as you can safely fire away until enemy forces swarm around you or sling grenades at your once-safe location. Shooting feels great, and the weapons have enough variety that you’ll tend to find something that works well for you. I tended to favor assault rifles and machine guns over shotguns and pistols due to their range and rapid-fire. Energy guns are great against robots as you’ll chew through their health far faster than pelting at them with standard bullets. It causes you to switch up your arsenal, but not in a way where you feel a sense of depth to its weaponry. Everything here is fun to use, but nothing present is really that original.
Augments are special abilities that consume energy and a few of them mix that with having a cooldown as well, preventing you from taking advantage of them too often. These vary from shooting out a holographic-looking dragon out of your chest, marking enemies so that when they die they transfer health to you, to summoning robots and tiny little explodable spiders to do your bidding. You can equip two augments at a time that are extremely fun to use and can often mean the difference between life and death. You’ll also level up a particular array of skills such as how much life you have, your weapon handling, critical rate, and your energy capacity, which in turn allows you to use those augments more frequently, You can also equip a tactical item as well, ranging from standard grenades, emp charges, to a pocket mech that isn’t really so pocket-size for a short burst of carnage on the battlefield. Complementing your augments are modules, which have less variety, that allow you to change up your dash, recharge your tactical faster, or allow your healing pick-ups to work quicker than normal.
As you progress, you’ll encounter upgrade components that allow you to enhance a particular gun, increasing its combative use. Since all guns are stat locked, selling a gun won’t remove the upgrades you’ve put into it, meaning that while you may have accidentally sold that upgraded Dread rifle, the next one you find or buy will have all those upgrades you’ve put into it. While armor is the same way with having set stats from piece to piece, you sadly cannot upgrade any piece you find, meaning that a large chunk of gear you find early on is useless after about an hour as it just doesn’t have the stats to keep you alive. It’s a shame that there are no costume slots as I adore so much of the armor styles this game has on offer but just couldn’t use them since why would I equip something that has a physical defense of 2, despite looking dope as fuck, when I have a janky-looking armor piece that reminds me of a car’s bumper that has 48 instead. While I get why they didn’t want you picking up 50 of the same armor piece and sitting there sorting through individual stats, it would have made armor drops a bit more exciting and you’d get far more out of duplicates here than just selling them, which thankfully can be done with a single button press.
Armor also does more than just keep you alive as each piece also has traits like how much digital damage you can withstand or your fire resistance as well. But you also get boosts to your skills that can see them rise higher than their level 20 cap. This allows you to somewhat create builds that focus on certain traits such as front-loading as much health or tactical sense, buffing certain skills to make them work a bit harder. Your skills will also affect your body as while I would keep putting points into my vital signs, body battery, and weapon handling, my frame would start to see more metal and cybernetics attach themselves to my custom-created character, making me more machine as I would level them up. But it is also those skills where the game makes a few hollow choices that don’t quite feel impactful. For example, maxing out my critical hit rate is only a paltry 20% and leveling up my aiming, which determines the spread recovery rate is currently at 609%. Will boosting it up to 700% really mean that much? or even 800%? Is there actually a huge deciding factor in something of a percentage that high? Leveling up my evasion never felt like I was actually seeing its benefits, making me leave it at around 14 and concentrating on other skills instead. I get that having these skills adds a lot to customization of a character and leaning towards certain builds, especially since you can pay in-game to reset them, but many of them don’t feel like they have the impact needed to really make your character feel like they are becoming stronger or better in certain areas.
While the character creator is fairly limiting with only a few basic looks you can really shoot for, you can customize a few tattoos, some hairstyles, your gender, and a few faces that unless you play with helmets off, you’re not likely to see your creation in all their glory that often. I also found it weird that while you can select a few tattoos, you’ll never see them if you’re wearing armor, or even through the choices of a few skin colors which make them just blend in to the point where they are not even visible. Thankfully, you can change many of these options later on, but oddly, changing your colors and shirt are only accessible when you visit a Grafter, a cyber technician who allows you to change your augments without an energy penalty, but honestly, changing up your augments while out and about is perfectly fine. It’s also here where you can spend money to reset your skills, which is cost-per-level, so at level 30, it’s $245,500 Ucreds to do so, whereas early in the game, I saw that it was around $8,000 at the time. Lastly, you have a few weapon skins as well, but given the height of the camera, these don’t quite have the visual impact other than being visible in a few cutscenes or locations where the camera is pulled in tight, which isn’t often.
A few last details about the visuals and the environment of The Ascent is how the camera will often pan in or curve around buildings to give a different view of the action. The game looks as good as it does because it only renders what is in front of the camera since you cannot freely move it around. It’s a smart move and allows the game to only show you what it needs to. Sometimes, and this happens very rarely, you’ll get a side-scrolling angle that makes it feel like a 2.5D platformer for a minute or two anyway. Still, the environments are often massive in scale, and the panning around with different angles is neat when it happens. Now, when the camera is zoomed in and this is often during cutscenes, character models don’t quite get the same level of detail we see in its world. While many of its districts are flooded with people. the camera is pulled far enough away that you don’t notice this lack of detail to its citizens, but get in close, much like say like viewing a painting, and a lot of that detail doesn’t quite look as good close-up.
Accompanied by a fantastic original soundtrack by Pawel Blaszczak, The Ascent is a damn impressive game that is currently experiencing many game-breaking bugs, and that’s a shame. Yes, we have patches coming and a few have dropped as I’m writing this, but had this game been delayed just a little bit to address these before launch, this easily could have been a game of the year contender as I really did enjoy the hell out of it. Provided you don’t experience the vast array of the bugs that are currently out there, you can take my score and make what you will out of it. The visuals, the action, the soundtrack, all mesh perfectly here, and while a few gameplay systems are a bit undercooked, I still highly recommend this game with the caveat that you should wait for a few patches for the developer to iron out these bugs. Still, my experience is not without its problems, and until my character is fixed, I simply don’t want to return to the game, for fear that I may end up losing my character entirely and that’s a shame, because this game can, and often does, kick ass.
Developer - Neon Giant. Publisher - Curve Digital. Released - June 29th, 2021. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows. Rated - (M) Violence, Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Simulated Gambling.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - The Ascent was downloaded off of Game Pass by the reviewer and played through on its DAY 1 update.