Solar Raiders is the new proposal of Robi Studiosan independent video game studio located in Cordoba Argentina. This team had already become known for Blue Fire, a spectacular 3D platform title that was released in 2021 and received many positive reviews. For their second project, they decided to go in a completely different direction, but just as exciting.
Robi Studios just revealed Solar Raiders: A roguelite in 3D with third-person combat and has a space theme, a distinctive art style and a gameplay loop full of possibilities. We had the opportunity to try the Demo and here we are going to tell you everything we could learn about this ambitious project. Spoiler Alert: It is a really addictive video game.
What is Solar Raiders about?
“After being kidnapped by Big Boss, the raiders must equip, prepare and fire on an intergalactic mission to steal the Solar Core… and probably fail”, says the official synopsis of Solar Raiders. Due to its length, the demo does not expand the plot much, but it already gave us a look at its interesting characters, who have quite extravagant appearances and charismatic personalities. We are very intrigued with the plan Big Boss and we can’t wait to see how this plot unfolds when we try out the full game.
The moment you turn on Solar Raiders, it’s immediately evident that this game oozes style. The graphics have a colorful and vibrant art style, the music is very catchy, and the designs of both the playable characters and enemies are quite unique. Right off the bat, one aspect we really liked was the level of customization there is for the player’s avatar, which is surprisingly deep for a Demo. When the final product is released, no two playable characters will be the same.
An important aspect to highlight is that, in our case, we tested Solar Raiders on a medium-power laptop that is not designed for computer gaming and, nevertheless, it ran surprisingly well for us, with very few performance problems and fast screens. loaded. So, if you have a moderately powerful PC, this game will run perfectly for you. It shows that it is well optimized to give a non-frustrating experience to all players.
For a Demo of a video game that is still in development, it was very refreshing to have experienced almost no bugs or glitches, except for a brief moment in which an invisible wall did not allow us to access one of the chests. The Solar Raiders Demo looks good, runs well and doesn’t have any major technical problems. We applaud the polishing work the developers did.
Solar Raiders’ Gameplay is Frustrating, but Addictive
Solar Raiders combines two genres in an interesting way. On the one hand, this is a third-person shooter, or a third-person shooting video game. This means that, in each raid, you will have to fight against waves of enemies, shooting them with your arsenal of firearms. It also has elements of “Bullet Hell” in its DNA, and it shows, because sometimes the screen is filled with enemy projectiles and you will have to be careful to avoid them if you don’t want to be eliminated. The truth is that this is a dynamic and fun combat system.
On the other hand, Solar Raiders is also a roguelite: You will have to make different raids in levels that are procedurally generated, accumulating weapons & power-ups and leveling up to get stronger, until you reach the final boss room. Everything you gained throughout your raid will be helpful when you are fighting the boss. The nature of this genre means that there is a huge level of replayability in each raid, as you will be able to find different weapons, power-ups, rooms, enemies, etc.
By combining these two genres effectively, Solar Raiders is a surprisingly addictive video game. As everything depends on your luck, and your ability to acquire new powers and weapons, some raids can be easy and others can be very difficult. The bosses are also quite challenging, so if you lose to them, you’re going to want to try again immediately to face them again with a different weapon setup and power-ups.
In our case, we made the first foray at least 5 times and it never felt like we were repeating the same level over and over again. After hours of playing, we kept finding new weapons and power-ups that we had never tried before. To be just a Demo, we can confirm that there is already a huge variety of weapons, power-ups and enemies in Solar Raiders. And we can’t wait to see this number grow in the final product.
It is important to clarify that Solar Raiders has a cooperative multiplayer mode which allows even raiders to explore a level together. Although we did not have the opportunity to try this mode, it is clear that this game is much more fun, and perhaps even less difficult, if you try it with a group of good friends. There is a lot of potential here to have endless game nights with all your friends who dare to enter this chaotic and colorful world.
In conclusion, we were really surprised with our experience testing the Solar Raiders Demo. It’s a fast-paced, chaotic game, but it’s also extremely satisfying once you start accumulating more weapons and power-ups to make yourself stronger and enemies easier to defeat.
It can sometimes feel like the genre that combines roguelites with bullet hells has been a bit overpopulated in the indie scene in recent years. However, Robi Studios managed to make Solar Raiders stand out, with its colorful art style and thanks to the ingenious decision to take it to the third dimension, making this game look even more impressive than it already is.
Solar Raiders will be released in 2025but, if you like what you read and are interested in trying it, you can access this link to download the Demo at Steam and add the game to your wish list. Many thanks to Robi Studios for letting us try the Demo to be able to do this Preview.
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