Kobe!
Steel Seed seemed right up my alley. I have a soft spot for AA action games, especially those that suffer from a surface layer of jank. Spiders, for example, is a developer I'll constantly follow, as was Piranha Bytes, the team that made the excellent Elex series. So, when I see a game that follows in those footsteps, I'm immediately interested. While Steel Seed excels in providing that type of experience, it has several flaws and ideas that may not make this an experience for everyone.
As Zoe, you'll wake up and find yourself housed in a metal cybernetic body and discover it's been hundreds of years later. Your father, a man who attempted to save the Earth, has been dead for just as long. Earth, through mankind's struggle for power, has become uninhabitable. However, when Zoe meets S4VI, her father's AI assistant, she discovers that she's the key to reigniting the human race, a burden placed upon her by her father and one she intends to see through.
The general plot of Steel Seed is fine enough and does a lot to push the story forward. Zoe soon learns that she can bring the consciousness of her father back alive by tracking down individual sources left by him. S4VI, who wishes to see your father's dream become a reality, aids you in this quest, a mind contained in a hologram-like form, a mind that has hundreds of years to contemplate the fall of mankind, and his purpose in resurrecting it. Upon gathering those four segments of Zoe’s father’s consciousness, S4VI will serve as the vessel for the transfer, an honor he has been waiting hundreds of years for.
Where Steel Seed’s story falters the most is how repetitive and telegraphed it becomes. You’ll know exactly how it will go down during an initial meeting with a particular character, even if part of that reveal eventually becomes vastly intriguing. It made me think back about certain bits of dialogue from various characters. While there isn’t too many characters featured here, there are a few that are used in fairly ok ways, but one that I felt should have come across as a much grander threat.
Steel Seed also suffers from a complete lack of boss encounters through almost the entirety of the game. There is a big robot you'll see throughout the adventure, but it is only used in chase sequences, that while enjoyable and often thrilling, don't quite satisfy in a replacement to more intimate encounters the genre is famous for. And, during a moment of its resolution, the cutscene itself is likely the most underwhelming aspect of the entire presentation, it was unbelievably bad.
Zoe herself is a typical action hero. Laughs in the face of danger, is far too quippy given the real stakes, and gets over her new situation and cybernetic journey all too quickly. There are good moments where she is locked in, but her writing doesn't allow the actor to really make me feel for her, even when certain revelations are revealed. Kobe, her little AI friend, is meant to be endearing and become the next big video game companion we are meant to care about. However, their R2D2-like chirps, instead of actual dialogue, weaken their appeal here as the conversations between them and Zoe are always one-sided. I get what they were trying to do, but even that “one” moment with them fell flat when it should have been a defining moment for the character.
While I wouldn't call Steel Seed a Soulslike, it does respawn enemies when you heal, a common trait that the genre is known for. This is basically just your typical stealth action game where you'll often hack and slash away and utilize a dodge, while also attempting to stealth kill your way through each battleground, a tactic that feels more suited to the whole experience. While there are specific encounters that you are forced to fight, the majority of the game has each environment tailored to either direct combat or stealth, complete with enemies following a path and the ability to lure them to you.
Stealth works fairly well, with vents that cloak you, making you invisible, and plenty of waist-high walls to hide behind. You can lure enemies by making a knocking sound, and then dispatch them when you are free to do so. You can upgrade your skills to automatically collect your resources from them upon a stealth kill, which comes in handy. You can pull them off ledges, over waist-high railings, and pretty much any form of environment. While it doesn't add anything to the stealth genre, there still is that level of satisfaction when you stealth up to the biggest threat in the room and convert them to your side, watching them destroy your opponents in the same ways they have attempted to do to you.
Combat is sadly the only gripe I have with the game from a design point. It is far too basic with just a light and heavy attack. There is no block or parry, and Zoe is extremely fragile. You can use your little drone companion in Koby, but his gun power is pitiful and only really good to finish off a ranged opponent who could spot you. Still, while the combat slashing is fine, as you use heavy attacks to break through their shields, I wish Zoe had more to her kit to make combat more than just two buttons. Hell, even adding something other than a single sword would have done wonders.
Steel Seed is also stripped of any loot and weapon variety, but does feature a fairly unique skill tree. As you earn “Glitch”, you'll spend it on skills. However, you need to complete challenges to unlock them. From dispatching foes in a variety of ways to Koby having kills of their own, you need to perform these tasks to earn the skill, along with the glitch cost. Steel Seed also has a few skills that I truly wish were present from the start, or something you at least earned at key points in the story, like being able to attack while sprinting. These skills range from increasing Koby’s toolset, scanning the environment for collectibles, increasing your energy allotment, to improving combat ten-fold with charged heavy attacks and an attack that decimates stunned enemies.
Visually, I am quite impressed here, far more than I initially expected. The sheer quality of the look of the game is staggering for its environments and the relatively small team size. The scale is off the charts in some ways, and reminds me of the first time I stepped foot in the Citadel in Mass Effect. Some locations are incredibly massive, providing a vast view to really be impressed by. Now, that praise aside, there is a glaring issue here. A lot of the interiors are nearly identical to one another, making some encounters feel less memorable as it feels very rinse and repeat in repetitive areas. When the game is outside, it is a work of art, especially a massive mechanical tree you’ll scale the inside of.
I'm also not a fan of Zoe’s design. I love the glowy bits of her aesthetic, but the subzero/scorpion mask does a lot to hide her emotions, especially as she continues to cling to her humanity, given she has only been converted to this current form. While we see her eyes up close in many of the game's story moments, it just isn't enough, especially at the end. If this was a result of the team unable to get convincing emotion out of her model, or even a cost-cutting measure, then I get it, but it ultimately makes me feel like she is no different than the robotic threats we are slicing up. Koby has little animated eyes, but we rarely see them apart from the odd cutscene they are in. Any chance to make the character memorable was completely lost on me.
Steel Seed is a game I also had a tough time seeing through. This isn't because of its difficulty or anything of the sort. Throughout my roughly 10-12 hours, tracking down numerous cosmetics and fleshing out the skill tree, I experienced around 80+ crashes. While a day two patch solved this issue, I was hard locked at a point in the final chapter that crashed 100% of the time. I attempted to reload and push through well over 50 times and it crashed. Every. Single. Time. Previously, if I had died, the game would crash upon reloading. This was reliable during my entire experience for about 80% of my deaths. Thankfully, you won't have to experience such a broken version of the game, as upon installing this recent patch, the game only crashed a single time until I reached credits.
Steel Seed is a game right up my alley. I love this genre and the games that have that surface level of jank. There is just something about seeing a game built with such clear passion that sometimes doesn’t get the level of polish we see in AAA. I get that many will see a very bare-bones approach to its combat, and I totally agree with that, but there is something fun here that I had a great time with, crashes aside. It's flawed, certainly, and could have used more to make me enjoy the two leads, especially Koby, but ultimately, it's an experience I enjoyed, and eager to see what the team does next.
Developer - Storm in a Teacup. Publisher - ESDigital Games. Released - April 22nd, 2025. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC. Rated - (T) Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A 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.