There is another roguelike game in town and it’s called ANVIL: Vault Breakers, or just ANVIL for short. It’s a new top-down sci-fi roguelite (considering carried progression is available) PC game. It combines Hack-N-Slash/Shooter mechanics–mixed with Bullet Hell.
ANVIL: Vault Breakers can be played alone but also features online co-op multiplayer for up to 4 players. It’s available in various languages, including English, Korean, Chinese Simplified/Traditional, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish.
I reviewed the preview (pre-release) version of ANVIL, something to keep in mind as more changes might be made once the game is officially released on December 2nd, 2021.
In-Depth Video Review
For those who love watching more than reading, here is a full video review of ANVIL: Vault Breakers – Enjoy and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel—Thank you.
About Anvil
So as I mentioned, ANVIL is a roguelite top-down shooter/Hack-N-Slash. In the game, you control characters called Vault Breakers, as you explore various galaxies, fighting monsters and bosses.
ANVIL is an agency that was founded to search for “Vaults”, the remnants of alien civilizations scattered throughout the universe.
When you start your run, you have to complete several planets in each galaxy to complete it. Each planet is procedurally generated. This means that every run feels different. Also, each run ends with a boss fight, but you might have more than one boss fight on other planets.
Like other roguelike/rogue-lite games, permadeath is part of the game cycle. If you die, you start from the beginning. However, this is a roguelite game, and there is some progression carried over. This includes replicated Relics, which your character can store up to 4. You can use Crons (blue) and Season Points (yellow) that allow permanent upgrades to stats for the duration of the season. These points can be obtained through the season pass (XP to progress).
ANVIL Character Classes (“Breakers”)
In Anvil, you’ll be playing with one of many different classes, called “Breakers”. As you progress you’ll collect Vault Energy and unlock different Breakers. Each breaker comes with its own unique set of abilities/skills.
Here are the available classes (with partial description about the abilities):
- Jungler – long-range rifle / explosive mine / bullet slash / crossfire
- Sandman – shotgun / tornado grenade/ sand sniper shot / power fhield
- Lightning – homing laser / quick dash / piercing laser
- Guillotine – big axe / executioner / combo-based attacks
- Mountain – hammer / combo-attacks
- Liner – rifle / missiles / electro trap / faster attack speed
- Rush – gauntlet / sand beaem / lightning flash / charge rush
- Elsa – dual pistols / summon module / ice wave / ultra beam
- Uzi – handguns / health regeenration / phoenix wings
- Toast – flamethrower / overheat causes self-damage
- Shuri – machine gun / heal module / breeze (heal allies) / gust wind
- Bronte – explosive plasma / detonate / bionic pulse
*partial ability list.
As you can see, a big list of different hero classes to play, each one feels very much different than the other. I played there of them and each one really felt unique and fun to play.
Weapon, Relics, Ability Upgrades & Rarities
When you start your journey in a galaxy, you’ll come by many different types of weapons, relics (unique buffs), and options to upgrade your abilities. Those come in different rarities (e.g. Tier-1, Tier-2; highest is Tier-3, aka Legendary).
Your goal is to try to focus on a certain powerful build that will enable you to complete the mission. For me, the most important thing is trying to beat the last boss in the 5th star, which becomes very powerful at the 3rd stage of the fight—I always lost to it, unfortunately playing alone.
If you fail (or succeed), at the end of the run you’ll get an option to get a random Replicated Relic. These relics carry unique buffs that affect your stats, making you more powerful overall. For example, two times attack speed, 25% higher critical hit damage, etc.
Accessible Roguelite Game
ANVIL is a more accessible roguelite game, in the sense that runs are relatively short—let’s say compared to Returnal.
We already see developers trying to make roguelite games more accessible to appeal to a broader audience. Hades was a great example of that.
Aside from considerably shorter runs, there are also quite a few things that players will carry over between runs. So in that aspect, the game is more accessible to those who don’t have a lot of time to play and will therefore also be better for online multiplayer rather than single-player.
The game does feature auto matchmaking. Now imagine trying to do a long run with random people online, that would be a bad idea. So bringing a 4-player co-op requires a few changes, making the game have shorter gameplay sessions.
Is ANVIL Worth Playing?
Yes! – My experience with ANVIL: Vault Breakers was very positive overall. I like the idea to be able to play with random people online, I love shorter game sessions, the game was fun and challenging and I like the look of the game as well.
Maybe the graphics aren’t 100% my cup of tea, a bit too grungy but still look really nice. The game ran well on my 1660 Ti, which was expected considering the minimum of GTX 660 (HD 7850) required for the game.
Overall, I recommend checking ANVIL: Vault Breakers if you love roguelite games and want games with similar mechanics (i.e. procedurally generated levels, random items, challenging bosses, permadeath, etc) but with online co-op, generous meta-progression, and short play sessions.
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