Info about Killsquad:

Official game description:
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FURTHER NOVARAMA HIGHLIGHTS
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About the Game
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Welcome to Killsquad: a co-op action game that blends twin-stick shooter, hack and slash and drops in a dash of character customization & progression. Join us on a journey to five planets full to the brim with enemies for you to annihilate. Choose your hero, select your skills, weapons, gears and talismans, and unleash hell through waves of relentless enemies and fearsome bosses.  
Killsquad deliveres frantic, direct, skill-oriented control on keyboard or gamepad. Shoot fast, dodge fast, or die even faster. Our core are short, 10-20 minute adrenaline pumping contracts you can enjoy solo or with up to 4 friends in co-op. So it feels a bit like a twin stick shooter. Or a hack and slash. Or a top-down dungeon crawler. Or a sci-fi bullet hell. Well, it feels like Killsquad. And it's a lot of fun to play, solo or with others.  
Killsquad features five hero classes for you to choose from, each with their own weapons and skills. These combine melee and ranged characters to fit different playstyles. Along your adventures, you'll be able to acquire and equip powerful upgrades for each of your skills, which activate during your contracts. And, if you survive, claim your bounty to spend it on tons of new equipment, such as weapons, power-ups and gear, or cosmetics to show off.  
Fight your way through +30 contracts in the Campaign Map, visiting five planets along the way. Jump in with your friends or with any other bounty hunter. You can come to the aid of another squad by joining them mid-mission in real time. Cooperate to complete each contract or compete between each other to earn the highest scores.  
Obtain weapons and gears with unique characteristics that affect the skills of your hero. Earn the trust of the Unseen by finding their Talismans: strong and complex artifacts with exciting passive effects. But be wary, these abilities at first will be detrimental, but through effort and killing lots of monsters can level up to turn into powerful items. Use everything in combination with your skills and upgrades to create game-breaking builds, and make the heroes your own.  
But this party would not be complete without the main course: the enemies. Hordes and waves of disturbing enemies will make their way to you, clawing and bitting till there's nothing left. But do not worry, you will be fine. It is the bosses which will make you tremble. More than 15 bosses will put you to the test, each with different sets of mechanics and unique ways to be beaten.

Release date: Oct 21, 2021

Categories: Cooperative Multiplayer, Twin-stick Shooter, Hack and Slash, Top-Down Shooter, Bullet-hell, Dungeon Crawler, Character Progression, Looter Shooter


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $15.00 - $25.00
  - Reasoning: One review explicitly calls $25 a fair price for planned content, while noting it feels a tad high for current playable state. Another reviewer implicitly supports $25 as reasonable by contrasting it to a hypothetical $30-40 price, which would be unacceptable. Several reviews consider the game not worth full price, suggesting $15-20 as a more acceptable base, especially given lack of content and updates. The range of $15-25 captures both the valuation for committed players and the discount necessary for value-conscious users.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 50.0h
  - Story completion: N/A
  - Session length: 1.0h
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: Game completion is inferred from '50ish hours to hit that cap' (endgame gear cap). Story completion has no evidence (reviews note no story). Session length is derived from mentions of 'digestible play sessions' and micro-sessions of 10-20 minutes, with a specific reference to '10 minutes' for quick sessions. Endgame is present but not quantified with a specific hour value beyond the cap grind. No reliable evidence for story completion or exact endgame playtime.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: Killsquad's core fun is gated behind co-op play with friends; solo and early progression feel unengaging, repetitive, and poorly tutored.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: Co-op play with friends
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: low playerbase and poor matchmaking; lack of meaningful progression; repetitive missions and grind; no tutorial and poor onboarding
  - Unlock drivers: playing with friends
  - Conditions: co-op with friends greatly increases fun; solo play is tedious and less enjoyable
- Player Archetypes:
  - Co-op Grinder (sale)
    - Motivation: Social cooperative gameplay and loot progression, enjoying the shared challenge and reward loop.
    - Playstyle: Plays primarily in cooperative multiplayer, focusing on grinding missions for loot and progression, often with friends to overcome difficulty and bullet-sponge enemies.
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: co-op lover; ARPG fan; grinder
    - Reference games: Helldivers; Risk of Rain; Diablo; Destiny
  - Veteran Solo Player (no buy)
    - Motivation: Personal challenge and mastery of the game's systems, but driven away by repetitive grind and lack of ongoing support.
    - Playstyle: 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.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: no buy
    - Labels: solo veteran; patient gamer
    - Reference games: Ruiner; The Ascent; Livelock
  - Casual ARCADE Fan (buy)
    - Motivation: Immediate fun and variety of short play sessions without long-term commitment, appreciating the arcade loop.
    - Playstyle: 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.
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: arcade fan; casual gamer
    - Reference games: Helldivers; Risk of Rain; Livelock


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Fun and addictive gameplay (weight 0.97): 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 (weight 0.56): 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 (weight 0.48): 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 (weight 0.35): 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 (weight 0.27): 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.
- Stable performance and connection (weight 0.21): The game features a stable online connection, runs smoothly without FPS drops or technical problems, and performs well even on older hardware like a GTX 970M.
- Clear enemy cues and mission variety (weight 0.15): Enemies provide clear indications before attacking, and missions have solid variety. These elements contribute to a smooth and fair gameplay experience.
- Plentiful and well-designed bosses (weight 0.15): Bosses are plentiful, well-designed, and cool, adding excitement to the gameplay.
- Customization and highlight reels (weight 0.15): The game offers skin customization and a highlight reel system after matches, reminiscent of Overwatch. These features add personalization and competitive flair.
- Tight controls and fluid gameplay (weight 0.15): Controls are tight and gameplay feels fluid, making for responsive and enjoyable combat.
- Flashy skills and satisfying combat (weight 0.15): Skills are flashy and impactful, and slaying hordes of monsters is satisfying. Combat feels juicy with good feedback.
- Variety of loot and weapons (weight 0.14): There is a variety of loot, and players enjoy trying different weapons, which keeps gameplay fresh.
- Excellent in-game codex (weight 0.08): The codex is really well-done and includes all sorts of stats, helping players understand game mechanics and track progress.
- Okay concept (weight 0.08): Some players find the game concept okay, suggesting it has potential but may not be groundbreaking.
- Active developer support (weight 0.08): Developer support is active and community-friendly, which is appreciated by players.
- Exhilarating solo challenges (weight 0.08): Clearing hard contracts solo feels exhilarating, adding a rewarding challenge for skilled players.

Common complaints:
- Abundance of bugs and technical issues (weight 0.78): 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 (weight 0.67): 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 (weight 0.61): 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 (weight 0.56): 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 (weight 0.5): Combat is monotonous with slow-paced action, weak enemy AI, and little enemy variety. Abilities and weapons feel similar and lack impact.
- Poor UI and lack of options (weight 0.46): The user interface is awkward, lacks essential options (like language change), and includes misleading text and icons. The mini-map is half-baked and confusing.
- Weak and unbalanced progression (weight 0.45): Progression feels meaningless due to character level resetting each mission, gear stats being irrelevant compared to a single Vector score, and upgrades feeling insignificant.
- Severe balance and difficulty issues (weight 0.4): Some characters are overwhelmingly stronger than others, enemy difficulty spikes are unfair, and solo play is near impossible at later stages due to tanky enemies and constant spawning.
- Sound design is poor and unimmersive (weight 0.39): Sound effects lack impact and often feel out of place. Voice acting is jarring, and character banter becomes annoying. The audio does not match the visual quality.
- Poor mission and map design (weight 0.39): Missions are overly long with repetitive objectives and tedious travel times. Maps are generic, monotonous, and lack variety, making exploration feel pointless.
- Limited content and replayability (weight 0.39): There are only a handful of missions, few characters, and minimal customization. Lack of variety and RPG depth leads to low replay value.
- Loot is unsatisfying and bland (weight 0.35): Loot drops are limited, unexciting, and often not rewarding. Regular enemies drop no gear, and the equipment system feels shallow with little variety or meaningful progression.
- No in-game communication or rejoin features (weight 0.32): The game lacks basic social features like chat, voice comms, rejoin match, and host migration. Disconnects or bugs often end missions prematurely.
- No tutorial or new player guidance (weight 0.3): The game lacks any tutorial or onboarding, leaving new players confused about mechanics, objectives, and progression. There is no story, keybind explanations, or in-game help.
- Underwhelming visuals and reused assets (weight 0.28): Graphics are dated and assets are reused heavily, making the game feel like it is from an earlier era. Creative aspects are underwhelming.
- Misleading language support (weight 0.21): Korean language support was advertised before purchase but later removed, causing frustration among players who bought the game expecting it.

Gameplay feedback:
- Per-mission leveling and reset (weight 0.56): In each mission, characters start at level one and temporarily unlock abilities as they progress, resetting after the mission ends.
- Randomized loot from bosses (weight 0.4): 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 (weight 0.22): During boss fights and escort missions, enemies constantly respawn regardless of kills, and multiple bosses can stun-lock the player.
- Uneven enemy difficulty (weight 0.22): 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 (weight 0.22): 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.
- Stable co-op matchmaking (weight 0.19): The game supports cooperative multiplayer with a stable online connection and a matchmaking system.
- Vector-gated difficulty tiers (weight 0.17): The game has Diablo-like fixed difficulty with three difficulty levels locked behind Vector (power level), which unlocks better loot.
- Limited but diverse characters (weight 0.15): The game features a small roster of distinct characters, including a tank, damage dealers, and a support, each with unique combat styles.
- Tactical slow mobility (weight 0.14): Slow mobility and skills give a tactical feel, with character choice altering gameplay from slow and heavy to fast and teleporting.
- Hidden objectives and escort mission (weight 0.14): Some hidden tech objectives require watching videos, and an escort mission has a long idle phase where the caravan stops to charge at 50% progress.
- Long and linear levels (weight 0.14): Levels are linear and very long, which can feel tedious.
- Talisman system and vendor upgrades (weight 0.14): The talisman system lets items with curses turn into boons as they level, and credits are the main currency for gear upgrades at a vendor.
- Latency and low population (weight 0.14): Online gameplay is latency-sensitive, affecting fast characters, and the low player population at lower missions makes matchmaking difficult.
- Hybrid genre blend (weight 0.14): The game is a hybrid of hack and slash, MOBA, RPG, and looter shooter elements, attracting fans of multiple genres.
- Smooth combat and animation (weight 0.13): The combat feels nice and characters are well-animated, despite other issues.
- Extraction-based progression (weight 0.13): Players select a class, drop into planets for contracts, and upgrade their character after successful extraction.
- Moggoth tail material bug (weight 0.08): There is a notable bug where Queen Moggoth’s tail material is unobtainable, preventing gear crafting.
- No loot explosion effect (weight 0.08): Gear drops from chests without a loot explosion visual, making looting less satisfying.

Performance notes:
- General technical instability (weight 0.17): Overall, the game runs oddly and suffers from general technical instability, indicating poor optimization and reliability.
- Memory leak increases RAM usage (weight 0.11): 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 (weight 0.1): 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 (weight 0.1): The game accumulates lag and stutter during extended play, requiring restarts every two hours to maintain acceptable performance.
- Crashes on game join (weight 0.1): The game crashes when attempting to join games, preventing players from accessing multiplayer content.
- Stuttering on specific GPUs (weight 0.1): On GPUs like GTX 1660 Ti and RTX 2070, players experience FPS stuttering and lag specifically during certain skill uses.
- Stutters cause disconnects (weight 0.1): Stuttering issues can cause players to disconnect from team sessions, disrupting multiplayer experiences.
- Poor optimization and disk strain (weight 0.1): The game is poorly optimized, has bugs, and puts heavy disk strain during section loads, causing performance issues.

Recommendations:
- Not worth full price (weight 0.4): 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 (weight 0.34): 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 (weight 0.27): 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 (weight 0.27): 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 (weight 0.13): Some reviewers concede the game might appeal to fans of looter shooters like Destiny or The Division, but not to a broad audience.
- Mixed early access quality (weight 0.11): One review acknowledges the game is an alpha build and not perfect, but offers a decent timekiller with some polish. This is an outlier positive note.
- Short playtime (weight 0.08): One review notes the game only provides 2-3 hours of entertainment, indicating very limited replay value.
- Depopulation issue (weight 0.08): A reviewer points out severe depopulation and weak promotion, making the game difficult to enjoy due to lack of players.
- Temporary commitment required (weight 0.08): One review notes that the game may be enjoyed only if you are willing to play for about 10 hours and then stop, implying a very limited play window.
- LAN party only (weight 0.08): A reviewer suggests the game is only fun in a LAN party setting with local friends, not for online co-op.
- Language issues (weight 0.06): A reviewer mentions Chinese language support is broken, advising to hold off purchase until that is fixed.
- Only in a bundle (weight 0.06): A single review suggests the game might be worth acquiring only if included in a bundle and if you have nothing else to play.
- Recommend only if you own it (weight 0.06): A reviewer tells owners to try the game but not to buy it specifically.

Other player notes:
- Fully voiced game (weight 0.1): Reviewers mention that the game is fully voiced, suggesting a high production value in character dialogue.
- Steam achievements present (weight 0.1): Players are noting the presence of Steam achievements and their count, which is a common point of reference for completionists.
- Steam trading cards available (weight 0.09): The game offers Steam trading cards, with 4 drops and 8 cards needed to craft a badge, indicating standard Steam integration.

Emotions:
- Disappointment (weight 0.43): The game lacks compelling content such as a story, variety in missions, and rewarding progression, leading to repetitive grind. Poor voice acting, dated graphics, and a dead online community compound the feeling that it is overpriced and underwhelming compared to other games.
- Frustration (weight 0.29): Frustration stems from a dead playerbase and required co-op, making solo play nearly impossible with awful scaling. The grind is tedious, weapons feel identical, UI is poor, and repetitive voice banter adds further annoyance without meaningful progression.
- Anger (weight 0.07): The game is excessively difficult solo, and a key escort vehicle mission is bugged, causing repeated failure and significant anger.
- Annoyance (weight 0.07): Playing solo is weak, forcing players to grind easier levels repeatedly, and switching characters requires an overwhelmingly higher grind, leading to sustained annoyance.
- Boredom (weight 0.07): The tank character is boring with minimal skill variation, and the need to reset to level one each mission combined with reused assets creates a monotonous experience.
- Initial excitement then disappointment (weight 0.07): The core gameplay is enjoyable initially, but the honeymoon phase ends quickly due to a severe lack of variety, leaving players disappointed.}