This desolate action-RPG about a city at the end of time is 11 years in the making

pcgamer.com:

Like many small-studio projects before it, Radio the Universe(opens in new tab) is one of those strikingly gorgeous, long-in-development independent games you catch tantalizing glimpses of on Twitter or Reddit and just need to know more about. The top-down, almost Hyper Light Drifter-adjacent adventure was at one point slated for a 2020 release while, as reported by Destructoid(opens in new tab) and, uh, us(opens in new tab), the game has been in the works in some form since at least 2012. But after this long wait it's finally playable by the general public for the first time thanks to a Steam Next Fest demo.

And it rules! Radio the Universe nails the fundamentals of this sort of top-down, 2D Soulslike⁠—your sword swings have this weighty feel and satisfying arc with a meaty crunch on hitting enemies, and the combat is tough but fair. Every enemy has an almost glacial wind-up with a holographic projection of where their strike will land, but they have wide, far-reaching hitboxes while you have a limited HP pool. Add in multiple enemies and their staggered, overlapping attack patterns, and Radio the Universe is left with a chaotic, engrossing rhythm to its combat.

One further wrinkle is that the game only rewards experience if you deplete an enemy's HP precisely to zero⁠—enemy health is rendered by a big number floating over their heads, while your attacks deal damage in multiples of two or three. You'll want to tag a six-hp enemy with the right combination of attack types to avoid «overkilling» them, and thus voiding your experience reward. I found this encouraged me to really mix it up with my attack types, doing mental math on the fly to figure out the most efficient path to a perfect kill. That's right kids, Radio the