Housemarque built its name on a very specific kind of game: fast, loud, and precise. Matterfall arrived in August 2017 as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and it tried to fold that arcade instinct into a side-scrolling shooter with platforming. The result is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and mostly gets there, without ever quite becoming essential.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
Avalon Darrow and the Smart Matter
Matterfall casts the player as Avalon Darrow, a figure in an armoured battle suit dropped into a futuristic science fiction world that has been infected by an alien material called “Smart Matter.” The premise is simple: the threat is expanding, and it may have already seeped too far into the core of humanity itself.
That is the whole of the setup. Matterfall does not spend much time on story, and it does not pretend to. Darrow is a suit and a moveset, not a character with a past. The Smart Matter is a reason for things to explode, not a mystery to unravel.
The game is played from a side view, single player only. There is no co-op, no multiplayer, no second screen. One player, one suit, one direction of travel.
Jump, Dodge, Blast
The core loop is exactly what the genre name promises. Darrow can jump, dodge, and blast aliens. Those three verbs are the foundation, and Housemarque tunes them well. Movement is quick and the shooting is responsive, which matters more here than in most shooters because the screen is often crowded.
Where Matterfall tries to distinguish itself is in the Smart Matter itself. Darrow can also create platforms to explore the environment and generate shields to deflect attacks of enemies. Those two abilities turn a straight shooter into something closer to a puzzle box.
The platforms are not decoration. They are how Darrow reaches parts of a level that would otherwise be out of range. The shields are not a passive stat boost. They are a timing test, a way to turn an incoming attack back where it came from.
A Side View With Nowhere to Hide
Side-scrolling shooters live or die on readability. The player needs to know, at a glance, what is dangerous and what is not. Matterfall is mostly good at this. The armoured suit reads clearly against the infected world, and the Smart Matter has a look of its own.
But the game asks a lot of the player at once. Jumping, dodging, blasting, building platforms, and raising shields are five separate demands, and the game stacks them quickly. When it works, it feels like a juggling act. When it does not, it feels like a control scheme with one too many buttons.
That is the central tension of Matterfall. It wants to be a pure arcade shooter and a platformer at the same time, and those two goals pull against each other.
The Housemarque Pedigree
Housemarque has a reputation for arcade action, and Matterfall fits that reputation without extending it. The studio’s best work has a clarity that this game only sometimes reaches. The shooting is clean. The dodging is clean. The platforming is where things get muddy.
The game is also short. It does not overstay its welcome, which is a virtue, but it also does not build to much. There is a campaign, and then there is the score chase, and the score chase is where the arcade lineage actually shows.
For players who like to replay levels for a better number, Matterfall has something to offer. For players who want a story, a world, or a reason to care about Avalon Darrow, it has almost nothing.
Mixed Reviews, and Why
Matterfall received mixed reviews from critics. That is the plain record, and it is not hard to see why. The game is competent in every department and exceptional in none. It does not fail at anything it attempts. It just does not attempt enough.
The IGDB critic aggregate puts the game at 6.8/10 across 13 outlets. That number is a fair summary. It is not a bad game. It is a game that sits in the middle of its own genre, surrounded by better examples of the same idea.
The most common complaint, reading the score as a whole, is that Matterfall feels thin. The most common praise is that it feels good to play. Both are true at once.
The Smart Matter Problem
The alien material is the game’s best idea and its least developed one. “Smart Matter” implies a threat that adapts, that learns, that does something other than sit there and get shot. Matterfall does not really deliver on that implication.
The material is a texture and a hazard. It spreads, it infects, it provides enemies to blast. It does not behave in ways that make the player rethink their approach. The name promises a living antagonist. The game delivers a backdrop.
That gap between premise and execution is where the 6.8 comes from. The shooting is good. The idea is better than the shooting. The game never closes the distance.
What the Score Means
A 6.8 is a specific kind of number. It is not a rejection. It is not a recommendation either. It is the score of a game that a certain player will love and most players will finish and forget.
Matterfall is worth playing if the arcade shooter is a genre you already live in. It is worth skipping if you need a reason beyond the mechanics. The game does not give you one, and it does not seem to want to.
The platforming and shield mechanics are the parts that will decide it for most people. If they click, the game opens up. If they do not, the game becomes a series of rooms you clear without much thought.
Matterfall is a 2017 side-scrolling shooter video game developed by Housemarque and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Why It Still Matters
Matterfall is a useful game to think about because it shows the limits of pure competence. Housemarque can build a shooter. The studio can build a platformer. Putting the two together does not automatically produce something greater than either.
The game also shows how much a name can carry. “Smart Matter” is a good name. It suggests intelligence, adaptation, a threat with a mind. The game never earns that name, and the gap is the most interesting thing about it.
For a 2017 PlayStation 4 release, Matterfall was a small game in a crowded year. It did not break out. It did not need to. It was a studio stretching, and the stretch is visible.
Where Matterfall Lands
Matterfall is a clean, fast, well-built side-scrolling shooter with platforming elements that never quite justify themselves. Avalon Darrow’s suit handles well. The Smart Matter looks good and does little. The campaign is short and the score chase is the real game.
At 6.8/10, the aggregate across 13 outlets, the score lands where the experience lands: in the middle. This is a game for players who already know they like this kind of thing. Everyone else can wait.
Key facts
- Title: Matterfall
- Year: 2017
- Developer: Housemarque
- Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Platform: PlayStation 4
- Release: August 2017
- Genre: Shooter, Arcade
- Perspective: Side view
- Modes: Single player
- Protagonist: Avalon Darrow
- Alien material: Smart Matter
- Critics’ aggregate score: 6.8/10 (13 outlets)
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