Metal Eden Review – Full Release (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, & PC)

Few have the luxury of spending hundreds of hours exploring for every last hidden item and secret. Hence, short and sweet games becoming more attractive. Yet on all fronts, a balance must be met between “wanting more” and hitting boredom. It’s all about rolling the credits at the perfect time, just before the gameplay starts to grow on you. In some ways, Metal Eden hits that sweet spot, hardly overstaying its welcome. But even then, the matter of its $39.99 price tag can be concerning for a roughly four to six-hour playthrough.

Price tag aside, is the core gameplay worth checking out? Do the supporting narrative and visuals do a splendid enough job to keep you glued to the screen? Does the game run without a hitch? In our Metal Eden review, we explore all of the pros and cons you’ll want to keep in mind before settling on making a purchase. 

Hope in the Stars

Humanity seeks a new life among the stars, storing their consciousness in digital form via a sci-fi technology called Cores. Millions of Cores are held in the futuristic floating orbital station, Moebius. The Cores’ destination is someplace in space. But somewhere en route, something goes wrong. There’s a lot of mystery in Metal Eden’s story, made even more complicated by the introduction of the protagonist, a hi-tech Hyper Unit android called Aska. She’s tasked with saving humanity against the forces seeking to destroy the Cores. 

I admit, in some moments, the story does pique your intrigue. And the closing is definitely an unexpected ending. Still, most story arcs are predictable and lackluster; quite sad, given the potential for some truly dramatic takes on dark sci-fi. Worse? Nexus, the voice in your ear. Perhaps meant to mimic robotic talk, but ultimately creepy and unnerving. It’s difficult to pay attention to the lore and answers he reveals to your questions, partially because of his awkward storytelling, but also because you’re busy shooting and parkouring to save for your life.

Fortunately, more characters spring up who are much better storytellers. And help deliver some key story moments and reveals that culminate in an overall decent and serviceable narrative. 

Metallic World

The “metal” in the title doesn’t stand for heavy metal music, but rather, the world itself, made up of futuristic, greyscale architecture. It can, at times, grow repetitive. But thankfully, Metal Eden doesn’t shy away from stylish visuals and vibrant color palettes. It mixes in explosive visual effects that help bring Moebius to life. And descending into the underlying decaying Vulcan planet adds more variety, with blots of red-hot lava.

Meanwhile, the music and sound effects hit the jackpot, with their riveting electronic beats and punchy, explosive bullet sprees. You’re forcefully dragged into the dystopian world, intensifying in rhythm and beat as battles and parkour segments grow more intense. 

Fast and Furious

Metal Eden’s level design is pitch-perfect for parkour, speedy, and fast in every way possible. The environment is designed to be three-dimensional, with lava pools to avoid, bottomless pits to evade, and more hazardous floors to watch out for. Not only horizontal platforming obstacles, but also vertical, as waves of enemies run hot on your heels. And so, chaining a series of ground and air dashes, double jumps, wall runs, zip lines, grapple hooks, and jetpacks proves inevitable to survive. It’s an acrobatic maneuver for survival from deadly traps and vicious enemies that keeps your fingers mashing and heartbeat racing away. 

Later on, you unlock the ability to turn into a metallic ball, steamrolling over lava and charging through environmental puzzles and enemies. Indeed, all of your traversal versatility, whether aerial or ground, saves your skin in intense combat encounters. And when mixed and matched wisely, stringing together combos can help you survive the impossible onslaught of puzzles, obstacles, and enemies.

Aska comes with so many moves and abilities, including slowing down time for more precise shots. Best of all, each one of the tools at your disposal will come in handy, dodging and closing gaps. You’ll effectively switch things up, frequently chaining moves and abilities to extend sequences and maintain speedy momentum. 

The Ripper

It’s not just traversal moves that come in plenty of variety, but weapons, too. Firstly, your auto pistol comes in handy for taking out pesky enemies at the risk of overheating. Then, you unlock more variety in shotguns, SMGs, and rifles. You can freely swap out weapons via the radial wheel, which you’ll do frequently to manage ammo and combat different enemy strengths and weaknesses.

Energy-type weapons break heavy armored shields more easily. But kinetic weapons inflict direct damage. Further, each weapon type comes with two upgrade paths that drastically deepen your strategy. You can attach a grenade launcher to your SMG, for instance, but also a sniper mode for long-range attacks. Overall, Metal Eden is great at encouraging the utilization of every tool at your disposal and extending them to the traversal combos you come up with. 

But the best part about combat is the Core-Ripping ability. After breaking down an enemy’s armor, you can rip out their Core from a distance. This instantly kills them, but also grants you two perks: absorbing the core for a health or power boost, or launching the core back at enemies for an explosive effect. The decision has to be made in a split second, adding an extra layer of strategy.

But also, the cooldown mechanic for Core-Ripping forces you to consider the risk-versus-reward of pulling it off. Primarily in the arena sections of combat, where waves of enemies launch at you from all angles, DOOM Eternal-style. Here’s where constantly being on the move matters than most, else enemies’ flurry of bullets will slice through you.

Few Kinks

Unfortunately, Metal Eden isn’t quite perfect. Take the Armored Ramball mode. By turning into a mechanical ball, you speedroll through environmental puzzles and enemies. And you can unleash ranged electric blasts and homing missiles at foes, too. But it’s only restricted to certain, few areas, rendering the ability useless for the majority of the game. Being quite a powerful traversal and combat move, it’s sad that you can use it to change the pace of combat and platforming throughout the game.

Another gripe you may have with Metal Eden is its runtime. Sure, you can branch off the mostly linear playthrough seeking Dust in-game currency for upgrades and other valuables. And this might increase your time in the game a bit. However, explorative areas are limited, leaving little reason to head back in for another go. Without a New Game+ mode or post-game content, the replayability of Metal Eden drags way down. 

Perhaps a minor kink is the balancing. With so many new moves, abilities, and weapon upgrades unlocking onward into your playthrough, Aska begins to feel a little overpowered. Battles grow easier, and the boss fights hardly make up for the dip in challenge. If anything, Metal Eden’s challenge lies in keeping up with speedy maneuvers and platforming. Otherwise, the combat is pretty accessible to any decent FPS gamer. And perhaps an even slighter kink, third-person shooting would have been nice. 

Otherwise, Metal Eden does a pretty good job of getting your blood pumping. It’s fast, it’s furious, and it will keep you on the move through to the end.  

Verdict

I quite love the premise of Metal Eden; testing the waters of AI and hi-tech solutions for humanity’s survival. There are some heavy themes here applicable to today’s world that I was excited to dig into. Only for the narrative to fall flat on its face. Many story segments come as little surprise. Hardly any pieces are memorable, let alone thought-provoking. And only a few key moments truly leave you in awe. If the dialogue were more emotional and intriguing, alongside more profound ideas and themes, perhaps the narrative could be as strong as combat and level design. 

Visuals are pretty good, with futuristic metal architecture and splashes of color and spice, while a heart-pumping soundtrack and sound effects that stimulate the senses play along. But the best part of your playthrough will certainly be the combat and parkour bits. This is one of the prime examples of providing versatile tools and encouraging experimentation with them all. While some weapon attachments break shields more easily, others drain health quicker, pushing you to constantly and consistently swap out strategies. 

Anyone needing a boost of adrenaline will get more than enough of it in Metal Eden, with the constant movement and tactical maneuvers. You’ll speedrun through multiple platforms, enjoying deep verticality via grapple points and wall runs. You never stop to catch your breath, or else what you’ll be catching is a bullet. And that feels simply thrilling throughout your runtime. Unfortunately, the four to six-hour runtime can be a dealbreaker, especially when juxtaposed with the $39.99 price tag. Perhaps at a discount offer, Metal Eden would be an absolute recommendation to any FPS boomer shooter fan.