Haven’t I been here already?
Developed by Pet Project Games, RIPOUT is an online cooperative shooter reminiscent of the likes of Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood, Redfall, and more. As you explore derelict ships and earn resources to craft better gear, you'll utilize small alien lifeforms as secondary weapons to combat grotesque monsters that roam in the dark. RIPOUT can often be a good time, but a vastly repetitive loop throughout procedurally generated environments only grants the occasional impressive moment.
The backstory to RIPOUT sees humanity on the losing side of an alien invasion. To combat this force, known as the Spiral, Earth created the Cell, a genetically modified microorganism that allows Earth's soldiers to rapidly heal wounds and integrate cybernetics into their body. While the war with the Spiral was wiping them out, a version of Cell proved wildly unstable and began to mutate and forced humanity to reach for the stars. However, Earth would then rely on the old adage of “fighting fire with fire” as you play as the last unmutated soldier, outfitted with an advanced version of Cell.
The task you are charged with as you come out of cryosleep is to discover what has happened to humanity and this is through a series of repetitive missions that has you exploring derelict vessels, tracking down notes, and more. While the premise is something that can invoke intrigue and possibility, told through a series of comic-book-like cutscenes, RIPOUT never amounts to much more than missions that all bleed together on ships that all look the same. The shooting and certain mechanics can provide a fun time, don't get me wrong, but too many of these types of games exist to make this one truly stand out.
Each ship you'll travel to, whether it is part of the main story or a host of other secondary and optional objectives, is littered with the remnants of the original Cell hosts, further mutated into abominations that can quite easily tear you apart. The ships are also long abandoned and in disrepair; lousy with exposed electrical hazards, and more. Panels will explode as you traverse the empty halls, and you'll even have to tend with isolated vacuums into the cold darkness of space.
The Cell are grotesque monsters that are fused with all sorts of machinery, hosts of various guns and lasers that make them formidable and maneuverable titans. They can take a lot of damage and have a very bullet spongey nature, expending a solid amount of your ammo as you hope their gory demise will spawn more. However, your weaponry is only one way to combat these atrocities.
Despite several ideas within RIPOUT being unoriginal, the Pet Gun is where Pet Project Games does bring something fresh to the formula. Regardless of your main weapon type, from assault rifles to shotguns, you'll have a little critter attached to your gun. They can assist with your vision of scanning for items, monsters, and other objectives, as well as be tossed out to decimate your foe, leaving you to your pistol for the few seconds they are away. You can also toss them out to the same little creatures that can leap towards your Cell adversaries to buff them with additional abilities. Here, you can benefit from them yourself, applying a finite resource of missiles, healing, melee attacks, and several more as you progress onward.
The Pet Gun is a nice idea, bringing an almost Pokemon-like mechanic to a game that visually doesn't seem like it would mix with it. These temporary allies certainly come in handy, but you have to make sure you don't send out your Pet towards critters who have abilities that you don't want to overwrite what you are currently packing, especially if you find yourself relying on the support critter who can heal you and swap to a more melee focused one.
As you progress through each mission, you'll encounter upgrade stations that grant enhancements for that mission. These are not permanent upgrades as they’ll be reset upon the mission’s end. Each station you find grants you the choice between three upgrades. These range from pet cooldowns, increased health, reload speed, and bonus critical damage. My only issue here is that it rotates as you attempt to read what the upgrades does, which made me accidentally choose one I didn't want. Granted, they are all more or less good choices, but still, it was a minor annoyance.
While uncovering the story is a central focus on diving into new locations, the loop here is centered around harvesting resources upon each run to then take back to your ship to craft new guns, mods, and gear. Mods affect things like your guns, health, and pets, and armor is composed of several different components that each have stats that affect your health, stamina, and more. Crafting items are permanent upgrades, making each run a tiny bit easier. While I do like plenty of the armor styles and mods, the reliance on a crafting system can cause the game to feel like a grind, given the paltry amount of resources you'll track down on a run. While some resources will be rewarded even upon death, the more impactful types are rewarded upon completing the mission.
RIPOUT does generally have a fast pace to combat; however, that is mostly in keeping away from enemies that can trounce you, especially when playing on your own as I don't feel the game is well-balanced for a solo player. As there is no radar to alert you to what is around you, you'll constantly have your head on a swivel to remain alive. You'll have one revive available, but with the game offering co-op, it provides you more chances to be revived when you have additional allies alongside you. And given the levels are procedurally generated, it's easy to get backed into a corner or stuck and be outmatched by some of the more vicious foes that can cut you down in seconds.
Depending on how you choose to play, you'll either be taking every corner slowly on your lonesome, or a more brisk pace alongside friends, which does change the game from being one centered around dread and the fear of the unknown and that of being your typical co-op shooter when you have less to be scared about as you chat alongside your friends. I also never felt that the amount of enemies increased when playing in co-op as several halls were almost barren.
My time with the game was largely relying on the online lobbies and the occasional game with a friend. However, after a few days, I hadn't been able to find anyone online. The few matches I did find were with Japanese players, completely in their language, meaning I had no idea what the mission was. That said, the connection was excellent and I had no latency or issues whatsoever. If more people were playing this game online, I likely would continue to craft some of the remaining gear items I have only in blueprint form.
Playing in co-op drastically changed how I played as we were able to almost speedrun levels and book it for the shuttle. Mission objectives may have some point to why you are there, but most are simply you following the objective marker, interacting with something, and then shooting your way out. Occasionally, you'll have timed missions, but apart from the timer, the structure of the mission is more or less the same. This causes the bulk of the game to seem like you are repeating the same half dozen missions over and over again.
The ships themselves lean into this repetition as well as you land in largely the same shuttlebay, progress through the same door, and then push through locations that tend to all bleed together. While this isn't always the case as you'll eventually find new tilesets that start to offer more variety, the building blocks for the bulk of these locations are still the same from one ship to the next.
Because of the randomness in how the levels are built, you'll find tons of dead ends that don't always reward the look. Some levels can offer up vastly different rooms by their conclusion, but the journey through these locations have micro-changes from one to the next. Had the core missions had significant changes from the side-content or been hand-crafted, then I could look past some of this. However, every mission, whether substantial or optional, is built from the same basic building blocks.
Despite my overall disappointment with the structure of what this game offers, RIPOUT is a visually impressive game that looks great either on a rig capable of running it at high specs, or even on the Steam Deck, which is where I played about half of my time here; granted, it takes a visual bump to have it run well. The atmosphere is well-handled here due to lighting being either very limited, or the vast limitations of your flashlight, adding to the terror, even if your Pet can highlight what is around you. The monster variety is more or less fine, and thankfully, each model of these abominations is impressive.
RIPOUT has a great concept and strong visuals, but fails in being an engaging experience just a few short hours in. Its repetition undermines the cleverness of its systems, crafting, and arsenal as you simply feel like you are repeating the same mission ad nauseam. The foundation here is solid, but more hand-crafted set-pieces could truly elevate this to be something worth exploring.
Developer - Pet Project Games.
Publisher - 3D Realms.
Released - May 28th, 2024.
Available On - Steam.
Rated - (M) - No Descriptors.
Platform Reviewed - Steam / Steam Deck.
Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.