It’s not often that I go into a game with absolutely no expectations and find myself completely blown away with what I find; however, The Ascent is a game that absolutely caught me off guard, out of the left field, and is an absolute gem on Xbox Game Pass. I’m guilty of not reading every single email I get. As a games writer, there’s a ton of games, so it’s hard to give the proper attention for every release. Somehow, I had never heard of The Ascent until about two days before the game was released.
Initially drawn to its isometric cyberpunk aesthetic, I couldn’t help but desire to get my hands on it. While I certainly wasn’t as disappointed by Cyberpunk 2077, as a lot of other gamers were, I’m always down to delve into anything that’s willing to give me this horrible yet beautiful dystopic human and machine hybrid nightmare. Let’s delve deeper into The Ascent.
Campaign
I’ll admit, the story is easily the weakest point of The Ascent, but it’s decently coherent given what it is. The Ascent Group is the largest Corporation that runs the world. While doing whatever mundane task they have you on, you quickly find yourself in the middle of some shit to try and find out why they suddenly shut down and why their security is going nuts with no one left to control it. Beyond a bunch of backstories unlocked in the Codex as you play, there’s a decent little story of duty, betrayal, and vengeance to be found here.
Combat & Gameplay
Where this game really shines is how much fun the gunplay is. The flamethrower is an absolute monster and there are some really cool guns including miniguns that shoot flurries of rockets and machine guns that shoot heat sinking missiles.
What’s most intriguing is the stand-up option allowing you to hold the left trigger in order to shoot over the top of set pieces which add a little bit of strategy to the combat as opposed to just keeping your distance. There are also some cool little abilities that let you summon spiders that explode when enemies come near or stasis blasts that allow you to do explosive damage that makes enemies explode and do splash damage on other enemies around. Grenades are pretty much worthless, but you’ll eventually find a healing totem that makes sticky situations a lot more bearable.
Graphics
The world of Veles is absolutely stunning. The visuals in this game are a true sight to behold and look excellent on the Xbox Series X. The mines are filled with corroded and weathered pipes, sealed off by keycard access portals, and are filled with a ton of these anthropomorphic rat things that have no qualms whatsoever about ripping your face off and eating it for a mid-day snack. The city hubs glow with the pollution of both neon light and trash in the gutter because of rampant substance abuse, and everyone’s doing something that’s painfully unlawful but there’s no sense of law to be found.
Final Thoughts
Above all else, The Ascent is a very impressive indie game made by a small studio of fewer than 30 people. Neon Giant has created a fantastic little isometric shooter that’s just as much fun as the games it painstakingly writes a love letter to. There are some bugs, though most have been ironed out by this point, and they’ve added a difficulty slider as well as other fixes relatively quick which means it’s only getting better as we go. In fact, I accidentally got 950/1000 gamerscore on the game just by playing it because I had such a good time with it, and it’ll be 1000/1000 as soon as the final achievement bug is fixed. I highly recommend you check out The Ascent as it’s been one of my favorite games so far in 2021.
The Ascent was played on the Xbox Series X and was provided for review by Neon Giant.
