When I hit my first wallrun in Metal Eden, I practically leaped for joy. Finally, a first-person shooter that lets me zip around like Spider-Man while shooting a bunch of robots.
Metal Eden is the next game from developer Reikon Games, known for the futuristic 2017 twin-stick shooter Ruiner. As with Ruiner, Metal Eden is paint-by-numbers cyberpunk fiction. Steel architecture is awash in a starter kit of neon reds and blues and oranges. Ominous synth soundscapes underscore every moment. And yes, it attempts to Say Something about how capitalism is bad. In a world without Titanfall 3, this will do.
In Metal Eden’s vision of the future, humanity has cracked the code on indefinite human life extension by means of uploading everyone’s brains to the cloud. From there, the consciousnesses fire off to an orbital city named Moebius that orbits a seismologically temperamental planet far away from Earth’s solar system. You play as a Hyper Unit (superpowered android soldier, Murderbot basically) named Aska, who appears to be able to be reconstructed ad infinitum at little material cost. Voilà — there’s your justification for being able to repeatedly die while trying to beat that one level.
Well, at least I think that’s what’s happening. To its credit, Metal Eden wastes no time getting you into the action, covering all of that exposition in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tablesetter. For the record, I blinked. And there’s no in-game compendium to help players who may or may not have been multitasking catch up on details they may or may not have missed. The vast majority of Metal Eden’s dialogue comes from a disembodied character who speaks directly to Aska in dramatic platitudes in an even more dramatic baritone. It’s as hard to follow as it is to care.
But an eye-rolling story is all well and good here because the action in Metal Eden freakin’ rips. A lot of games try to sell players on the fantasy of being a badass, and fulfill that fantasy to varying degrees. As Aska, there’s no ambiguity: You are a badass.
Metal Eden’s bullet-time mechanic consistently guarantees as much. An optional ability allows you to briefly go slo-mo for a few seconds, giving you leeway to step out of the way of your enemies’ shots and better line up your own. You use an impressive arsenal of guns, all of which have multiple alternate uses — including an electric weapon that can freeze enemies solid and an SMG that launches Molotovs. Not all enemies go down easily, though. For some, you need to melee attack them to remove their armor and, in some cases, heal yourself. Yes, this is a gameplay quirk that smacks of the Doom reboot series that started in 2016, but it’s the movement that helps Metal Eden slip into the throne vacated by Titanfall.
Exhibit A: the wallrunning. Most of Metal Eden’s combat arenas are bordered by walls you can run along, circumventing enemies. You have a thruster pack that allows you to double-jump, and even hover for a few seconds. Many levels have vantage points you can zip to with a grappling hook (a feature that was popular in Titanfall 2’s multiplayer mode but absent from its campaign). And for the rare moments you are on flat ground, you can tap a button to snappily dodge. These all coalesce into a combat flow in which survival is contingent on constantly moving. While not a one-to-one recreation of Titanfall 2, the speed and fluidity of Metal Eden’s action are certainly reminiscent of Respawn’s long-dormant series.
That and the fact that you spend a lot of your time fighting giant robots.
I’m a few missions in and, sadly, have not ended up actually piloting one of these giant robots. But you do get an ability that allows you to turn into a metal ball, zipping around battlefields like you’re Samus Aran. In this form, you can launch barrages of targeted missiles, and you can shock enemies with electricity. I haven’t used it much, truth be told, as it’s so ineffective that I feel more like a nuisance than an invincible human-robot death machine. But I’d certainly use the hell out of it if Metal Eden had a multiplayer mode. Not for efficiency. For the purpose of being really, really irritating.
Obviously, Titanfall is one of the great lingering threads in contemporary gaming. The original Titanfall was proof of concept that giant mechs could exist side-by-side in a multiplayer shooter. Its 2016 sequel expanded on that concept in every way, not just with a robust and evolving multiplayer mode, but also with a campaign that to this day ranks among one of the strongest FPS campaigns of all time. Titanfall 2 reportedly failed to meet publisher EA’s sales expectations. (It was initially released between a new Battlefield and a new Call of Duty.) Instead of pivoting to Titanfall 3, developer Respawn then pivoted to its live-service shooter Apex Legends and its excellent series of Star Wars Jedi action-adventure games. While the “Where titanfall 3” meme line hasn’t quite achieved the same cultural saturation as “where silksong” (unless you are in a Polygon meeting), it’s certainly close. Apex Legends periodically reminds its players that it’s part of the same, but it’s just not the same. The world wants more Titanfall!
Is Metal Eden the next Titanfall? Not exactly. It doesn’t even have multiplayer. But for the time being, it’s the next best thing. Your move, EA.
Metal Eden is out now for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. Metal Eden was reviewed with a PS5 download code provided by publisher Deep Silver. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.