Available today for everyone on Steam, Last Encounter is a top-down, twin-stick shooter with heavy weapon customization and a few roguelike influences. I got a chance to go hands-on with the game this year at PAX East, and garner a few impressions ahead of today’s PC launch.
In Last Encounter, a savage, technologically superior race has invaded Earth, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Thankfully, newly discovered cloning technology has given the remaining survivors a last bit of hope. Earth’s remaining pilots must traverse procedurally generated galaxies to thwart the alien onslaught in a final fight for survival.
Players select from a variety of pilot clones, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Pilots are paired with distinct ships, each with their own attributes and abilities. Components salvaged along the way can be combined to create devastating weapons that may hold the key to end the extraterrestrial invasion.
Combat, especially with multiple players, gets very fast and frantic.
In my PAX East hands-on, I played the game with three other people – two of the developers and a fellow game journalist. Last Encounter definitely shines brightest in multiplayer. The game scales its difficulty depending on the number of players, making it perfectly functional to play solo, but get a few people together, and it’s flawless mayhem! In our demo, we were yelling over the din of the show floor to cover each other, asking for rezzes, and generally doing our best to make it to the final level.
There’s some kind of weird electrical thing going on here.
I think we got to the second sector. Like many games with random elements inspired by roguelikes, Last Encounter can be brutally difficult, no matter how many people are on your team. Resources are shared between allies, and two writers learning the game for the first time probably aren’t best equipped to make an epic newbie run.
“When playing co-op in Last Encounter, players will need to strategically use resources to best prepare for fighting off waves of enemies,” said Andrej Kovacevic, game director at Exordium Games. “Whether alone or with friends, players can engage in frantic, intense battles over and over again with the joy of weapon experimentation and loads of replayability.”
There’s some kind of weird electrical thing going on here.
Gamers interested in learning more about Last Encounter should check out the official website, the official Discord channel, and look for the game on Steam now. For those wishing to play from their couches on their favorite current-gen console, the game will be coming to Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Xbox One in Fall 2018.
