Carve up foes with elemental combos in side-scrolling roguelite SlashZero

6 days ago 5

There's just something so cool about using melee weapons in a cyberpunk setting. The katana in Ghostrunner—sublime. The mantis blades in Cyberpunk 2077—inspired. SlashZero, as the name suggests, lets you slice and dice enemies across various timelines. Oh, and you can juggle them in the air with sick combos, too. I haven't seen this much off-the-ground action since my housemate battered me at Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

In SlashZero, you take on the role of a Timehacker. Their mission is to take down the Lord of the Void, Hieros, who seems to have thrown the whole world into disarray. There are also scattered Authority Keys, Codes, and Blessings all over the place. You'll collect these on your forays into the disparate timelines to upgrade your build on the fly.

The different builds shown off in a new PC Gaming Show trailer look pretty cool. As a fan of Dead Cells, I'm excited to get stuck in and see what synergies I can come up with. The game's 3D anime style lends itself perfectly to the frenetic combat, which sees the characters darting around enemies as they slice, shoot, and summon tornadoes and fiery explosions with elemental powers.

You can freeze enemies in place and go to town on them, racking up huge damage while they're immobile, or you can summon lightning bolts that chain onto multiple foes if you're surrounded. The fire looks like my go-to, though. Burning columns of it rise up from the ground, and hot circles form outward from your Timehacker. I like to control space and get that burn-over-time damage so I'm still getting rid of my opponents even while repositioning.

The trailer shows two of the Timehackers in action—a guy with two swords and a woman with guns that can rapid fire or blast like shotguns—and a third is coming soon. If you want to see more, wishlist SlashZero on Steam and sign up for the playtest here.

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Issy van der Velde has been writing about video games professionally for five years, contributing to Rolling Stone, NME, GamesRadar+, IGN, and many more. He's been freelance and held editorial roles across news, guides, and features, and is now the deputy editor of the PC Gaming Show.

A lifelong gamer, Issy won the MCV 30 under 30 award for his work covering queer, Arab, and women's representation in the gaming industry.

His favourite games are narrative, story-driven adventures, arcade racers, roguelites, and soulslikes.

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