Resogun arrived in 2013 as a PlayStation 4 launch title from Housemarque. Sony Computer Entertainment published it. Ports for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, developed by Climax Studios, followed the next year. It is a shoot ’em up, and it is one of the sharpest games of its generation.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Five Cylindrical Levels, One Evil Alien Invasion
The setup is simple. Distant galactic colonies are under attack from an evil alien invasion force. You fly a ship, you shoot, and you rescue the last survivors. Resogun draws heavily from Defender and Datastorm, and is considered the spiritual successor to Housemarque’s previous shoot ’em up games Super Stardust HD and Super Stardust Delta.
That lineage shows in the structure. Resogun runs on five distinct, cylindrical, voxel-based levels: Acis, Ceres, Decima, Febris, and Mefitis. Each level splits into three phases and ends with a unique boss enemy. The cylinder wraps around, so enemies come at you from both sides of the screen at once. It is a side view, but not a flat one.
Blasting everything is the primary goal. Saving humans is the reason to care. A human sits trapped in a chamber until you kill a set of “keepers.” Kill them, and the human drops free. Pick it up, carry it to one of two safety points, and you bank a bonus toward your final score. Let the human die, and the score suffers.
Unleash a diverse array of devastating weapons including lasers, missiles, overdrive, and nova-bombs to blast hordes of enemies and rescue the last survivors from distant galactic colonies that are under ruthless attack from an evil alien invasion force.
Nemesis, Ferox, and Phobos
Three ships are available: Nemesis, Ferox, and Phobos. Each one trades agility, boost, and overdrive against the others, so the choice is a real one rather than a cosmetic pick.
The tools are the heart of the game. Overdrive, once charged, fires a powerful beam of energy that can take out large quantities of enemies. Boost works as a speed boost, lets you escape a crowd, and destroys enemies by colliding with them. The nova-bomb produces a large explosion that clears every enemy currently on the level. Nova-bombs are limited in quantity, but pickups restock them.
Ship upgrades and extra lives come from pickups or from saving humans. You can also select custom skins for your ship made by other people online. After each level, the game hands out a bonus score based on factors including the number of humans saved and the number of nova-bombs preserved.
Single Level and Arcade
Resogun ships with two modes. Single Level lets you pick one level and chase a single high score. Arcade strings the levels together. Both modes carry global leaderboards, split by difficulty setting, which is where the game’s real life sits.
| Mode | Structure | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Single Level | One selected level | A single high score on that level |
| Arcade | Full run across the levels | Endurance and consistency |
Multiplayer is here too. Single player, multiplayer, and co-operative modes are all supported, and online co-op lets you join friends and show off your skills. Co-op is not a bolt-on. It changes how you cover a cylinder.
A Launch Game That Outlasted the Launch
The complaints against Resogun are fair and narrow. It is short. It offers no tutorials, which means the keeper system, the human rescue loop, and the multiplier are left for the player to work out. For a game built on a scoring chase, that is a real cost.
The praise is broader. Journalists lauded the graphical prowess, the fast-paced gameplay, and the soundtrack. Resogun won several awards and was nominated for Action Game of the Year at the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It also appeared at the 2014 GDC Choice Awards.
What matters most is that Resogun was a launch title that did not need the launch. Most games shipped alongside a new console are remembered for the date, not the design. Resogun is remembered for the design. The voxel cylinder, the keepers, the humans, the overdrive beam, the nova-bomb you hoard and then spend — those are the reasons people kept climbing the leaderboards long after the PlayStation 4’s first holiday.
The lack of tutorials is the one flaw that still stings. A player who never learns why saving humans matters is playing a lesser game and does not know it. That is a fixable problem the studio chose not to fix.
Years of shoot ’em ups since have not produced a cleaner one. Resogun is fast, loud, and precise, and its short length is the only thing standing between it and the top of the genre.
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