The term ‘working from home’ has gained a new meaning in CyberCorp’s rendition of the future. From the comfort of their apartment, a hacker extraordinaire – referred to as “Agent” – is able to remotely control a cybernetic body. Taking the form of a sleek and agile Synth, they’re sent out onto the neon-lit streets not to run daily errands, but rather to take part in shady deals and confront gangs without any fear of direct harm. During an arms deal it transpires that the aptly named cybernetic corporation CyberCorp has a rat on the payroll, and you’re just the person to help sniff them out. It’s time to take out the trash…. without even stepping out the front door.
While similar in appearance to the likes of The Ascent, Livelock, and RUINER due to the isometric viewpoint and top-down camera, CyberCorp has more in common with live-service style looter shooters such as Destiny, The Division and Warframe – albeit on a far smaller and more modest scale. It has online co-op and a few elements like daily challenges, while the central premise is based on improving your Synth with every mission bestowing a loot box drop as a reward. Inside are not just a few weapons and pieces of armour, but usually enough to rebuild your Synth entirely, becoming stronger and fiercer after each mission. Like Destiny, missions have a suggested ‘power’ level, and loot is colour coded as common, rare, or exotic.
To create its visual style, it uses a mixture of flat shaded polygons and textures showing moderate detail, along with realistic reflections and exaggerated lighting for energy-based weapons. While it doesn’t go out of its way to generate a rich or tense atmosphere, the action is fast paced and it runs smoothly; these are environments to blitz through, not to stop and take in.
The majority of missions take under ten minutes to beat, and while made with online play in mind I was able to play through the whole campaign solo without issue. The story – mostly told by mission briefs with static portraits – is spread across 15 stages with a handful of boss battles, and there are shorter survival/data capture missions to jump into if you need to grind. Story missions can also be replayed on harder difficulties, with higher-level loot as a reward.
You’re given three lives per mission, which is a fair amount due to the notably smooth difficulty level – an indicator of thorough playtesting. Death (or at least, the Synth’s destruction) usually comes at the hand of ‘Invaders’ – stronger and faster moving adversaries with meme-esque names, who drop into missions without warning to catch you off guard.
The mission objectives aren’t a huge stretch of the imagination, mostly involving capturing zones, destroying servers, and manoeuvring platforms into place, all while following a glowing path. One early mission has an escort quest too. Bosses fare better in terms of ingenuity, being the focal point for that mission and usually featuring a few different waves. Mission locations are also a little bit drab in their design, being a mixture of grimy streets, boxy apartments, nondescript warehouses, and bland office blocks – with little in the way of memorable set-pieces. By the time the ending credits rolled, no mission stood out from the rest, although they’re all serviceable in terms of navigation, length, and difficulty.
Instead of clever level design, explosive set-pieces, and unique mission objectives, CyberCorp instead uses its loot system to hook players. This is the element where it excels the most, making this an experience centred heavily on self-improvement. You’re able to carry two firearms along with a melee weapon – making it essential to find ideal combos – and armour is split across head, torso, and legs. Every piece of equipment has a handful of stats, with armour boosting either health or shields, and it’s possible to customise your Synth with paint schemes.
Weapons vary from shield-draining energy rifles to punchy pistols, with a few on the experimental side such as deployable drones and rocket launchers. Rarer weapons often have slots for perk cards, adding ricochet effects etc, while armour can be improved to make shields recharge quicker. Additionally, two cooldown skills can be selected for battle (with a third slot later unlocked) which include turrets, drones, an EMP shockwave, and the ability to deploy a healing beacon. Using these proficiently will often turn a battle in your favour.
Every item can be improved using the forge located in the apartment hub, and duplicate perk cards can be amalgamated to increase their rank. If a particular weapon or piece of armour is proving useful, it can be upgraded several times over to prevent it becoming outclassed – although each upgrade will eat into your credits. There’s an item shop too, although this did feel a bit surplus due to the vast amount of loot doled out during a mission.
Spending a few minutes between missions to sort loot is a curiously compelling pursuit. Tinkering with loadouts, investing wads of credits on upgrades, browsing the store, selling junk, and trying out new weapon combos is quite engaging, while allowing for flexibility when it comes to creating a Synth able to churn though enemies with relative ease. Discovering you’re in possession of an item that’ll make you overpowered for the next couple of missions is a joy.
I felt that CyberCorp represented a decent halfway point between an arcade-style top-down shooter and a modern live service game, while also being quite respectful to your time with its adjustable difficulty levels and brief replayable missions. It may even be a little too respectful. After eight hours of playtime, not only was the storyline wrapped-up – which involved reaching power level 40 to tackle the final boss – but was also able to return to a few missions to mop up achievements within that time, leaving little else to see.
While shorter than similar games, CyberCorp’s brevity doesn’t make it hard to recommend – and may even be seen as a boon, offering a concise experience. The quick burst gunfights, random invasions, and the addictive loop of sorting loot and trying out new equipment makes for something rather engaging. There isn’t much here in the way of innovation, feeling like an amalgamation of other top-down shooters that came before it, but it’s well-refined and it borrows only the best of ideas from its peers.
Megame LLC’s CyberCorp is out now on all formats.