Battle Shapers

About

Battle Shapers is a single player shooter game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Metric Empire and was released on December 4, 2024. It received positive reviews from players.

Battle Shapers is a blazing-fast, sci-fi FPS roguelite in which you shoot and smash your way through swarms of corrupt robots. Wield powerful weapons, abilities and game-changing new powers stolen from ruthless Overlords to bring New Elysium back to the utopia it once was.

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85%

Audience ScoreBased on 797 reviews

gameplay97 positive mentions

grinding18 negative mentions

Fast-paced, fluid, and fun FPS roguelite gameplay with satisfying gunplay and movement.
Unique build and upgrade mechanics including weapon mod extraction, core combinations, and metroidvania-style progression.
Vibrant, colorful, and polished art style with engaging music and well-designed bosses that add personality.

Long runs and difficulty spikes, especially boss fights that can be punishing and frustrating.
Performance and optimization issues causing FPS drops and long loading times on some systems.
Limited content variety with few bosses, repetitive level layouts, and some weapon balance problems.

gameplay
254 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
58%
4%
The gameplay of Battle Shapers is widely praised for its fast-paced, fluid, and addictive combat that blends elements from Doom, Megaman, and roguelike mechanics, offering a satisfying core loop with diverse build options and engaging upgrades. While some users find the initial progression slow and certain mechanics or bosses frustrating or inconsistent, overall the game delivers a polished, dynamic experience with responsive controls, meaningful decision-making, and a rewarding blend of movement, shooting, and ability use. Although not groundbreaking in innovation, its well-designed synergies and customization create a compelling and enjoyable roguelike shooter experience.
- “It is an absolute blast to play and, over time, provides the player more mechanics and tools to manage the combat encounters and light puzzles within each level.”
- “The gameplay is engaging and even if some weapons are more fun/efficient than others, the game offers way for each run to feel good, and the core mechanic that gets unlocked after a few runs allows to expand even more the type of move/build orientation you'll have access to.”
- “The gameplay’s decent, but fairly standard.”
- “Takedowns (one of the core mechanics) are notoriously inconsistent.”
- “The sluggish feeling gameplay just isn't there yet and may never be.”
- “Behind the flashy visuals are boring animations (especially reload animations which are all just a variation of the average energy weapon overheating animation you might find in other games), guns lack any impact, very samey feeling runs for a roguelite, very spongey enemies, a janky enemy execution system, annoying writing, incredibly slow progression, and generally just boring gameplay.”
graphics
143 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
56%
2%
The game's graphics feature a vibrant, colorful, and stylized sci-fi art style reminiscent of Mega Man, which many find visually appealing and fitting for its fast-paced gameplay. However, some users note issues with repetitive room designs, visual clutter during combat, occasional poor optimization causing frame drops, and a lack of variety in environments. Overall, the graphics are praised for their clarity, creative direction, and aesthetic charm, though the heavy effects and inconsistent performance can sometimes hinder the experience.
- “✅ Polished visuals and smooth performance: the colorful art style and satisfying combat are top-notch.”
- “The graphics are slightly stylized, colourful and vibrant, with great fidelity, lighting and effects.”
- “The visuals are nothing short of mind-blowing, immersing you in a beautiful colourful world, super well designed futuristic environments and robotic enemies.”
- “The graphics of this game are pretty basic but the optimization is still horrendous.”
- “Rooms look the exact same on floors, there is no difference in visuals on the same floor at all; if I choose to go to Gravity Gardens, it's going to be the same moss/grass on walls or a window on every single wall throughout the floor.”
- “My GPU handled Borderlands 3 with no problems, but here it is constantly on 100% with drops to 40fps every time I enter a new room, while graphics don't look any better.”
music
80 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
51%
45%
4%
The music in Battle Shapers is widely praised for its energetic, Megaman-inspired electronic and rock-infused soundtrack that enhances the fast-paced combat and vibrant art style. While some find it generic or mismatched with the FPS setting, most agree it complements the game's atmosphere and gameplay, though audio mixing occasionally drowns important sound cues. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a strong and memorable element that adds to the game's addictive and nostalgic experience.
- “The soundtrack complements this high-energy presentation with driving electronic and rock-infused tracks that amplify the adrenaline of combat.”
- “The music will have you tapping your feet throughout your runs, it’s very Mega Man X-like and the world needs more Mega Man X music.”
- “Excellent art direction, visuals, music, the works.”
- “I didn't like the music and I think it doesn't really suit the game's environment.”
- “The music is a bit generic; I found myself muting the soundtrack and just playing the Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack while playing it, which improved the tone quite a bit personally.”
- “Sound design choices are thematic, but the layers of music and all sorts of sfx tend to overlap too much, drowning important sound cues.”
story
57 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
19%
76%
5%
The story in this FPS roguelite is generally seen as minimal, charming but not deep, with some players finding it predictable or lacking substance. While it offers likable characters and occasional witty dialogue, much of the narrative is secondary to gameplay and requires progressing through difficult modes to access the full storyline. Overall, the story is serviceable and adds some appeal but is not the main focus or a standout element for most players.
- “I won't try and spoil any of the story events because the more runs you do the more crazy stuff you only see foreshadowed only moments before it happens.”
- “At first I got pulled in by the boomer shooter styled rogue-like experience, however now that I am over 15 hours into the game and have beaten the game on at least beta difficulty, the thing I keep coming back for is the story. I love my big dope that is Volt Colossus.”
- “The rogue-lite based leveling provides so much to do, so many builds to craft and the story-line is also very touching.”
- “Story is essentially non-existent: typical hero wakes up from slumber, guardian has gone missing, kill the new overlords.”
- “Normally I just wouldn't play the game at higher difficulties but the story is locked away behind what I feel is un-fun gameplay which is a shame because of how fun the game would be without that one debuff.”
- “The game story is nothing to write home about.”
optimization
53 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
58%
19%
Optimization for this game is currently inconsistent, with frequent frame drops, stuttering, and performance dips especially during busy scenes or larger maps. While some users report solid performance on high-end hardware, many experience struggles even with decent specs, indicating poor optimization that impacts gameplay fluidity. Developers are aware and working on improvements, but optimization remains a key concern affecting overall experience.
- “✅ Polished visuals and smooth performance: the colorful art style and satisfying combat are top-notch.”
- “So much improvement with the difficulty and optimization, it shows how dev love and taking care of their game.”
- “Surprisingly well optimized game for being early access with excellent gunplay that doesn't have to envy any new Doom games and a very wonderful color palette.”
- “The graphics of this game are pretty basic but the optimization is still horrendous.”
- “Performance, I struggle to play on anything but low with an Nvidia RTX 3060.”
- “Performance: this one is the most apparent issue right now; aside from the frame drops, there are also micro stutters and long loading times.”
replayability
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
54%
13%
Replayability in this game is generally praised, with procedural variations, evolving loadouts, and progression systems providing a compelling roguelite experience that encourages multiple runs. While some players find replay value strong due to diverse weapons, perks, and increasing difficulty, others note it may be limited by a relatively small variety of bosses and rooms and express desire for more classes or coop multiplayer to extend longevity. Overall, it offers satisfying fast-paced gameplay with solid replay incentives, especially as ongoing updates add content and challenge.
- “For players who enjoy high-mobility arena combat layered with run-based progression and evolving loadouts, it offers a compelling, replayable experience that captures the spirit of classic shooters while integrating modern roguelite sensibilities.”
- “The new corruption system and difficulty for re-runs adds even more replayability and will cement this game as one of my favourite in the genre!”
- “Killing a boss essentially supercharges the next location you visit, with the next boss having more abilities, the rooms containing elite units, and traps/obstacles being more difficult (this resets if you die), so even though there's understandably not a ton of boss/room variety in the game's current early access state, there's a decent amount of RNG in the runs and thus replayability.”
- “I don't think it currently has a ton of replay value after that, but I got my money's worth.”
- “It's an okay game, but I have doubts about the replay value.”
- “Do some actual balancing of the weapons and enemies, and this will be a really good fast-paced shmup, but as it stands, the replayability of it all just comes from how unfair it is without the ability to learn to overcome that imbalance.”
grinding
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is a mixed experience: early progression can feel tedious and grind-heavy, especially before defeating the first boss, but the gameplay opens up and becomes more strategic and rewarding afterward. While some criticize prolonged grinding for basic upgrades and manual tasks as boring, others appreciate the depth it adds once the initial grind is overcome. Overall, grinding impacts pacing significantly, making lower difficulties more enjoyable and higher difficulties potentially tedious.
- “It's a lazy way to balance the later difficulties and adds unnecessary grinding in the early game.”
- “That said, I think that the meta-progression needs a rework - the player starts off remarkably frail (even by roguelike/-lite standards) and in dire need of a couple basic upgrades to HP and shields/shield generation, which means a lot of grinding before you can reasonably get into the more interesting unlocks - new weapons and powers and the like.”
- “So I was about to give this game up after 4 hours of grinding for the same results, no new weapons, ability, talents, anything, until I finally cleared the first boss and the game opened up spectacularly.”
stability
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
40%
The game generally runs smoothly with great graphics and manageable performance, though some users report occasional bugs such as freezing, lag, and rare crashes, particularly on certain devices like the Steam Deck. Minor glitches like getting stuck or falling through the world have been noted but don't significantly detract from the overall stable experience.
- “Really great graphics, runs great, always frantic but manageable, can save during runs, and can upgrade guns so you're never forced to switch off one once you find it in a run.”
- “Tight, challenging, bug free so far.”
- “The game runs smoothly on my Ubuntu desktop (which means it probably runs great on Steam Deck).”
- “The game is buggy; I have gotten stuck in the floor several times and have even fallen through the world once.”
- “Sometimes on Steam Deck, the game freezes and crashes, but otherwise it plays perfectly.”
- “There is lag between characters talking where my whole PC freezes for about 10 seconds before I can play again.”
humor
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
86%
14%
The game's humor is well-balanced, offering witty and often funny dialogue without detracting from gameplay. It features clever writing reminiscent of classic superhero comics, with moments of genuine amusement, especially during later story developments and unique gameplay mechanics. Overall, the humor feels natural and enhances the experience without ever feeling forced.
- “The dialogue has some funny writing, especially when you involve some of the later story developments.”
- “Loads of loadouts customization and a very solid (and often funny) writing.”
- “The written interactions between the characters are quite witty and humorous, feels kinda like the dialogue in those old superhero comics.”
character development
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
28%
29%
Character development is highlighted primarily through detailed and colorful character designs that draw inspiration from popular titles like Overwatch and Mega Man, appealing especially to anime and robo-mech fans. While the plot is sometimes seen as sluggish, the world-building and character animations are praised for their quality and diversity. Overall, character design and animation are standout elements that enhance the gameplay experience.
- “The character designs are beautifully made, the gameplay is incredibly fun and challenging later on which I absolutely love.”
- “There's a lot of love for the Megaman series in there, from the character design (sprinkled with some Overwatch) to the music which really pleases me.”
- “All the animations are very well done, the character design for enemies is detailed without being too busy, and there's a diverse array of enemies.”
- “Mighty No 9's plot and Overwatch's character design meet in a sluggish attempt at replicating NUdoom's combat.”
- “Music and character design are not really to my taste, but the anime/robo-mech fans will be pleased.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
Users feel the game's atmosphere could be greatly improved with clearer, more dynamic lighting and stronger shadow effects to add depth. They suggest incorporating colored atmospheric lighting, similar to the effective use seen in specific levels, to enhance environmental immersion and create varied moods across different stages.
- “To bring environmental design details together, use of colored atmospheric lighting would help a lot. I noticed this in the lockdown levels in Gravity Gardens, and it makes a world of difference compared to the neutral lighting!”
- “I suggest using this on all levels instead (e.g., add a bit of green atmosphere in Gravity Gardens), and perhaps events like lockdown could be quite dark with stark vibrant red lights.”
- “I’m also imagining how more intensive global lighting - implement hard shadow casts from structures, dynamic shadows from characters/enemies to enhance the overall atmospheric contrast.”
emotional
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
33%
The emotional aspect of the game is mixed, with some players appreciating the touching storyline and engaging rogue-lite progression, while others find the narrative, characters, and overall experience uninspiring and emotionally flat. The game’s mechanics can evoke frustration and heartbreak, adding emotional depth for some but further detracting for others.
- “The rogue-lite based levelling provides so much to do, so many builds to craft, and the storyline is also very touching.”
- “Even though the game gives you all the tools for success, death can still feel cheap and heartbreaking with the retaliation mechanic (the boss of the area will add a wrinkle to whatever area you are fighting in).”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users appreciate the absence of microtransactions and DLC, valuing games that offer substantial free content. They express strong support for developers who adopt this approach and are likely to promote such games and their art.