Loopmancer Preview – Blade Running

Loopmancer by eBrain Studio, a new cyberpunk time-looping action roguelite that is set to slash your living space this year. The game looks promising, and I got to test my mettle against a demo to see how well it’s shaping up. 

The story revolves around Xiang Zixu a detective, who is killed on a mission to find an underground crime lord. He wakes up in his apartment the next morning. That’s right, our officer is trapped in a mysterious loop, but he retains memories of his past “lives.” Figuring out the cause of this loop will be one of the core plot points, and eBrain promises that players’ accumulation of knowledge plays an essential role in shaping Loopmancer’s storytelling. For example, there are multiple outcomes based on your actions. You may decide choices differently based on events from a prior loop. It was hard to see the scope of that vision during this small slice of the game; I only saw incidental examples such as Xiang attempting to warn his superiors of upcoming events and them gradually taking him seriously (or at least humoring him) with each loop.

Xiang is armed with an arsenal of melee weapons, ranging from swords to bar stools, and firearms. Combat is fluid and fast. While I was tearing into my enemies from close range, I ran to escape retaliation and close gaps. And, of course, unloaded the bullets that were being fired at me from far away. Loopmancer strikes the right note for anyone who loves stylish action. To clear mobs, you can use additional equipment like proximity mines or grenades. Xiang has a cybernetic arms that allows him to unleash attacks such as electricity bolts or flame streams. Loopmancer is a champion of skillful movement. Enemies hit hard and can regularly throw players off by activating damage-absorbing defensive states or executing uninterruptable attacks. Death came swiftly and often, which is why it’s good to upgrade abilities, weapons, and stats with permanent enhancements between runs. 

You can use the standard features of platforming, such as double jumping and grapple hooks to get up to higher platforms. Levels randomly change their layouts every so often to keep players on their toes, and exploration rewards hidden stashes of currency, an important resource for investing in new unlockable weapons, as well as a unique checkpoint system. The special terminals are able to restore health, but they lose their effectiveness after completing each stage. The healing potential of rare cores is preserved by spending them, so it’s a good incentive to keep your eyes open and explore.  

Loopmancer’s challenging combat has legs, and the Asian-influenced cyberpunk world looks exceptional (though familiar) from an artistic standpoint. The experience does feel rough around some edges, though. The loop must be reset by going through the apartment again and stopping at the police station. You can somewhat rush through these areas, but it feels like one-stop too many when I’m itching to leap right back into the action. After a while, I also found skipping over the same scenes annoying. On a similar note, re-collecting lore notes is a chore, and the randomly shifting environments don’t change often enough. At least three runs were required to complete the level layout. While the dialogue can be accepted as average for a B-movie, enemy dialogue is hilariously terrible. Slicing through foes results in them spouting over-the-top lines like “Tell my family!” or mundane reactions such as “He got our guy…”. It sounds more like they’re suffering a minor inconvenience than being brutally slaughtered. 

Loopmancer has felt like an old roguelite romp so far, but it still needs to get its act together before the big day. The action has potential and the story’s quality depends on how creatively it uses its time-looping premise. There’s a fun game to be had here, and I hope Loopmancer can realize its potential when it launches this year for PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Switch, and PC.