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It’s Getting Hot In Here
Cradle Games has announced that its indie action RPG Hellpoint will finally launch on Nintendo Switch on February 25. The new comes nearly six months after the developer released the title on PS4, Xbox One, and PC while subsequently announcing a delay for Nintendo’s portable platform, citing a need to polish and improve the experience for Switch buyers.
The Switch version of Hellpoint will cost $34.99 and be available both digitally and physically, with the latter inexplicably coming a day later on February 26. The PS4 version will also be available for the first time in physical form on the same day, and avid collectors can even get their hands on a physical Signature Edition of the game for either console for $49.99, which comes with the following:
- Hellpoint game
- Two limited edition enamel pins
- Hellpoint Soundtrack CD
- Certificate of authenticity with developers’ signatures
- 44 page art book
At this time, there has been no announcement regarding a physical version of Hellpoint for Xbox or PC.
Is It Worth the Souls, Though?
Hellpoint‘s ambitions are occasionally at odds with its small indie budget, which results in an inherently imperfect game with a handful of quirks and frustrations, but that hasn’t stopped it from receiving ongoing positive reception from genre fans. After its initial rocky launch, which left early buyers with a buggy mess that crashed frequently, ran poorly, and sometimes corrupted their saves, Cradle Games worked quickly to resolve a majority of the issues and has remained devoted to improving the experience for its dedicated playerbase ever since. December’s update added an optional 60 FPS mode to the game when played on a PS5 or Xbox Series X, and the development team has promised a full-fledged upgrade for PS5 and Series X owners later in 2021 that will offer higher resolutions and additional graphical settings pulled from the PC version.
Though it takes obvious inspiration from the acclaimed Dark Souls series in terms of combat, exploration, and cryptic exposition, Hellpoint sets itself apart with a Giger-esque sci-fi setting where you’re tasked with exploring a derelict space station in an effort to figure out what happened in the time before your journey. It’s there that you’ll navigate the often claustrophobic maze of haunting embassies, ports, and observatories, take eerie space walks guaranteed to get under your skin, and meet a variety of unnerving NPCs with ambiguous intentions. And just like Dark Souls, you find and use a variety of weapons to beat down foes while managing a stamina bar and making use of rolls and blocks to avoid incoming attacks, and being successful in this regard results in experience points that level up stats which are vital to survival.
It must be said that Hellpoint is every bit as demanding as other games in the Soulslike genre. Consequently, gamers seeking an accessible or relaxing experience might want to look elsewhere, as this one is for those willing to take a beating and keep coming back for more. That being said, the game can be played entirely in co-op to make things a bit less daunting for newcomers, so if you’re interested but skeptical about your skills, you could always tackle the challenge with friends. After all, if you’re going to get your ass kicked, it helps to have someone else to blame it on, right?
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