Severed Steel from Digerati and Greylock Studio is a very fun, dynamic first-person stunt shooter on PlayStation. Learn more in our Severed Steel review!
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Severed Steel from Digerati and Greylock Studio is a very fun, dynamic first-person stunt shooter on PlayStation. You’ll take on this game as the titular Steel, a one-armed sharpshooter who must use each item in full because there’s no reloading in this one! You’ll need to always be ready to grab a new weapon as you kick with your steel-tipped boots, slide, wall jump, and more. Explore destructible environments that will suffer the consequences of each bullet that is fired, with rounds big and small that will leave a mark.
Since Steel is missing an arm, the game will soon outfit her with a powerful arm cannon to compensate things. How powerful is said prototype arm cannon? Well, it can destroy most walls! That means that you can use it to open up new paths within each level, skipping some rooms as you make a mad dash to the next objective – which includes a lot of destroying stuff as you defeat a ton of enemies. The arm cannon can also be used to attack enemies, but you shouldn’t rely on it since it does fire at a very slow pace.
Severed Steel offers a Campaign Mode as well as a Firefight Mode. The Campaign Mode will have you go through the story for Severed Steel as Steel, taking on six compact story chapters as you take on the evil forces of the EdenSys mega-corporation. Firefight Mode is an arcade-style experience in which you’ll be chasing high scores and trying to complete challenges as fast as possible as you aim to gain a spot on the leaderboards. Firefight Mode features 42 levels packed that will allow you to unlock 20 game-modifying Mutators. These can be activated to add effects such as the floor is lava, limited slow-mo, and more.
The game can be played in one of five different difficulty settings: Cold Steel, Tempered Steel, Severed steel, Sharpened Steel, and Molten Steel. Cold Steel offers a more relaxed experience with a lower enemy count, and enemies always drop guns with full ammo as your health recharges over time – oh, and you have unlimited bullet time! Tempered Steel is similar to the standard experience but with the challenge dialed back a bit. Severed Steel offers the standard experience, just as the developers intended. For Sharpened Steel, enemies deal twice as much damage. As for Molten Steel, you will only have one hit point! Going from Tempered Steel to Molten Steel, each difficulty option will boost your score by 10, 20, 100, and 200 percent, respectively.
Since this is a dynamic first-person shooter, you’ll move with the left analog stick as you look around with the right one. You can jump and double jump with the X button or jump by pressing in on the left analog stick. Your character can also wall-run as needed. You can shoot with the R2 button and can enter bullet time by pressing and holding down the L2 button to slow down everything around you. Since you should always be on the move, you can dive with the Triangle button, do a kick slide when running by pressing the Circle button – which is also used for crouching – or fire your arm cannon with the L1 button.
There are many options for you to check out in the settings menu to tailor your experience. You can activate or deactivate ammo indicators, auto picking up weapons when no ammo is left, auto kicking enemies when in range, auto activating slow-motion when in a stunt, that when you shoot with an empty weapon, you’ll instead throw it at an enemy, make your character auto stop at ledges, change thee running speed, change the crosshair, change between a high-resolution mode or a high detail mode, activate or deactivate motion blur, establish an outline for enemies – and the color for them – reduce flash, violence and screen shake, and more.
As for the trophies, Severed Steel has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy, and since the game is Cross-Buy, if you have a PlayStation 5 console, you can aim at adding two Platinum trophies to your collection. The list has 12 Bronze trophies, 22 Silver trophies, and 2 Gold trophies. You’ll get trophies for completing each of the six story chapters in Campaign Mode, as well as for some miscellaneous objectives such as getting 50 and 200 headshots, defeating 100 and 1,000 enemies, completing a New Game+ Campaign, or beating specific levels while activating specific Mutators, to name some examples. As for the rest of the trophies, they’re tied to climbing up in Firefight Mode as you up to levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80.
Severed Steel is a game that caught me by surprise. I was expecting a fast-paced first-person shooter, but not one with such an addictive gameplay loop. It reminded me at times of the excellent Superhot. The game has six chapters to take on in its Campaign Mode, as well as an arcade-style Firefight Mode in which you’ll work on climbing up the leaderboards as you complete many challenges. Add an excellent soundtrack from Floating Door, which does a great job of complementing the action, and you have a solid title to check out on PlayStation. Severed Steel is available as a Cross-Buy title, so your $24.99 purchase will give you access to both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game at no extra cost.
Disclaimer
This Severed Steel review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Digerati.
