Killsquad Review Summary

Fun and addictive gameplay with nice visuals and diverse characters, but plagued by bugs, a tiny declining playerbase, and repetitive grind.

Fun and addictive gameplay: Many players find the core gameplay and combat loop addictive and satisfying, often describing it as fun and enjoyable. Key highlights include fluid combat, satisfying horde-slaying, decent impact feedback, and a solid core loop that remains engaging for a while.

Nice visual style and graphics: The game receives high praise for its visually appealing art style, beautiful graphics, and great lighting effects. Reviewers also appreciate the clean interface and Destiny-inspired top-down visual quality.

Diverse characters and enemies: Players enjoy the variety of characters with interesting designs, well-animated models, and distinct abilities. The enemies and monsters are also varied, with a Guardians of the Galaxy-inspired sci-fi setting.

Solid meta progression and builds: The progression system is well-received, featuring a satisfying reward loop with gear, faction levels, character levels, and a skill tree that offers three choices per upgrade. Synergies between gear and skill trees create distinct builds per class.

More fun with friends: Playing with friends or in a full group enhances the experience, making missions more enjoyable and the gameplay hectic but fun. However, it can only be fun when it works reliably.

Abundance of bugs and technical issues: The game suffers from many bugs including boss fights breaking, escort missions failing, memory leaks, stuttering, and crashes. These issues severely affect gameplay.

Tiny and declining playerbase: The game has a very small player count, making matchmaking nearly impossible without external tools like Discord. Public lobbies are empty and the multiplayer feels dead.

Repetitive grindy gameplay: Core gameplay is highly repetitive, with identical missions, same room designs, and constant grinding required for progression. This leads to burnout and boredom.

Unplayable without friends: Solo play is frustratingly difficult due to game balance heavily favoring co-op. Progression and many missions become extremely challenging or impossible alone.

Repetitive and uninspired combat: Combat is monotonous with slow-paced action, weak enemy AI, and little enemy variety. Abilities and weapons feel similar and lack impact.

Per-mission leveling and reset: In each mission, characters start at level one and temporarily unlock abilities as they progress, resetting after the mission ends.

Randomized loot from bosses: Weapons and equipment have random stat rolls and effects, obtained from mission bosses, reward chests, or crafting, with higher difficulties offering better loot and sockets for modifiers.

Constant enemy spawning issues: During boss fights and escort missions, enemies constantly respawn regardless of kills, and multiple bosses can stun-lock the player.

Uneven enemy difficulty: Enemy difficulty varies wildly, with some walking slowly and others being nearly impossible, and solo play can be extremely punishing with one death ending the mission.

Weak upgrades and irrelevant stats: Upgrades feel weak and equipment stats seem irrelevant, with Vector (power level) being the only stat that matters, leading to disappointment in characters and weapons.

General technical instability: Overall, the game runs oddly and suffers from general technical instability, indicating poor optimization and reliability.

Memory leak increases RAM usage: A memory leak causes RAM usage to start at 2.5GB and steadily increase after each mission, leading to performance degradation over time.

Visual flickering and artifacts: Players report that visuals suffer from constant flickering, pixel artifacts, and no visual improvement when changing graphics settings, making the game unpleasant to look at.

Progressive stutter over time: The game accumulates lag and stutter during extended play, requiring restarts every two hours to maintain acceptable performance.

Crashes on game join: The game crashes when attempting to join games, preventing players from accessing multiplayer content.

Not worth full price: Many players feel the game is overpriced and should only be purchased at a significant discount or not at all. Several reviews explicitly state the price tag of $24.99 or full retail price is not justified.

Better alternatives exist: Several players suggest playing other games instead, such as CONTRA: ROGUE CORPS, Helldivers, Risk of Rain 2, or Lost Ark. The game is seen as inferior to these alternatives.

General not recommended: A large number of reviews simply state they would not recommend the game in its current state, without going into specific reasons. This sentiment is echoed across multiple clusters.

Wait for fixes or next game: Some reviewers advise waiting for a sequel, future updates, or post-launch fixes before considering a purchase. The game is seen as an early access or alpha build that needs more work.

Only for genre fans: Some reviewers concede the game might appeal to fans of looter shooters like Destiny or The Division, but not to a broad audience.

Community fair range: $15.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 50.0h.

Session length: 1.0h.

Killsquad's core fun is gated behind co-op play with friends; solo and early progression feel unengaging, repetitive, and poorly tutored.

Friction: low playerbase and poor matchmaking; lack of meaningful progression; repetitive missions and grind; no tutorial and poor onboarding.

Unlock drivers: playing with friends.

Co-op Grinder: Plays primarily in cooperative multiplayer, focusing on grinding missions for loot and progression, often with friends to overcome difficulty and bullet-sponge enemies. Motivation: Social cooperative gameplay and loot progression, enjoying the shared challenge and reward loop. Stance: sale.

Veteran Solo Player: Plays almost exclusively solo, pushing through high-level content and difficulty despite the game's co-op design, but eventually feels fatigued by lack of multiplayer interaction and content depth. Motivation: Personal challenge and mastery of the game's systems, but driven away by repetitive grind and lack of ongoing support. Stance: no buy.

Casual ARCADE Fan: Enjoys short, repeatable missions with quick progression and variety, often comparing it to arcade-style twin-stick shooters. Plays both solo and with friends casually. Motivation: Immediate fun and variety of short play sessions without long-term commitment, appreciating the arcade loop. Stance: buy.

Fully voiced game: Reviewers mention that the game is fully voiced, suggesting a high production value in character dialogue.

Steam achievements present: Players are noting the presence of Steam achievements and their count, which is a common point of reference for completionists.

Steam trading cards available: The game offers Steam trading cards, with 4 drops and 8 cards needed to craft a badge, indicating standard Steam integration.