Sealbreakers is the 3D isometric roguelite brawler that we've all thought about but never played, and it’s already looking promising in this playtest.
A 3D Isometric Kind of Beatdown
Fistful Redemption Arc
Sealbreakers puts you in the shoes of a knight from the Faceless Order, a disgraced brotherhood of warrior-monks that has sworn to fight without weapons. With time and space shattered by the four Tyrants' corruption of the Seals, you must fight your way through ancient monasteries and corporate dystopias to redeem your Order and restore balance to the world.
Story-wise, the playtest doesn’t have anything just yet. But you can’t say the concept of a warrior-monk in knightly armor fighting to save the world with only their bare fists isn’t interesting. It’s also important to note that their fighting style draws on many martial arts, each from different time periods.
Why was the Faceless Order disgraced in the first place? Who are these four tyrants? And how come these warrior-monks know how to pull off a perfect suplex? These are just a few of the questions that will probably be answered in the game’s Early Access or full release, but one thing’s certain: this game is already squaring up to be a certified banger.
Beating Enemies Up In More Ways Than One
In gameplay, Sealbreakers is what you’d get if you imagined a combination of the foundations of Hades and Tekken’s combo system. The former takes the form of the game’s basic inputs and mechanics.
With Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, Blocks, Parries, Dodges, and Grabs as the main tools to fight back against the many enemies it throws at you. There’s also the Structure system, which is pretty much the Posture system in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice to stop you and enemies from blocking everything.
Now, it’s easy to say that it looks basic on the surface, but it's where its mechanics and progression system come together that the magic happens. To be more specific, how these basic mechanics enhance the game by giving the players more tools to deal damage.
Part of the game’s progression, which we’ll talk more about later, involves learning new moves after combat encounters. These moves often involve using a different kind of input or even changing the way the original move used to work. For instance, one specific technique I liked using was giving the player a special Grab after Dashing at an opponent, which negated enemies’ Super Armor.
Beyond its combo system and basic mechanics, you’re also given other tools to use, like environmental objects and weapons you can throw at enemies to deal damage with minimal effort. However, the most important thing to learn about its combat system is how its progression works through its Passive and Special Skills.
At the start of a run and after every combat encounter, you’ll be given a choice between three different Passive Skills or a Special Skill. Think of it like the manner of choosing a Boon in Hades.
To add to this, Special abilities and Passive Skills are classified under three different elements: Fire, Lightning, and Shadow. In practice, these are fairly straightforward. Passive Skills augment your base moveset and add additional effects, while Special Skills are unique attacks that cost a resource to use in a pinch.
For example, you can get a chain lightning after every light attack, or add an explosion to your Push-Back attacks, or even use the shadows to grab enemies when you throw them after a successful Grab. Moreover, one Special Skill I’ve loved using is Challenge the Storm, a Counter that lets me deal massive damage after a successful parry.
With the combination of Passive and Special Skills and learning actual moves, this is where the game’s buildcrafting comes into play.
Experimentation is the Name of the Game
The playtest lacks a practical tutorial, so most of the gameplay is a session where you’re learning by doing. And, like most great action roguelites, the best part of its gameplay is learning how things work and interact.
As explained earlier, progression in Sealbreakers involves learning a Special Skill or an entirely different Attack. Certain attacks and skills have different properties that can induce a unique Push-Back, launch the opponent, knock them down, or even bounce them off the ground. And this is where the game goes all in with its depth, as you can take advantage of your passives with the moves you have or have learned.
For instance, you can combine the Lightning Chain passive skill, which adds chain lightning to all of your light attacks, with the Shaolin Punches or Rapid Strikes technique, which lets you hit enemies with three light attacks immediately. This results in a light attack string that chains lightning bolts to multiple opponents and quickly racks up damage.
Another is using the Shadow Grab passive to stun an enemy after a successful Throw, combined with the Dash Grab move I talked about earlier to take an opponent out of the fight for a while, regardless of the enemy type.
Speaking of which, there is also a good variety of enemy types in the game as well. Each type tends to have different attack patterns and even resists certain attacks. Take the Red and Blue Masked Brutes, where they’re immune to Grabs and will counter your attempt with a Grab of their own.
Already Promising This Early On
Sealbreakers is an action roguelite worth keeping an eye on. Just learning the game’s many attack and skill interactions and navigating against different enemy types feels so much more rewarding than your average action roguelite. As of writing, this is still a playtest, and it has a lot of room for improvement beyond its core gameplay loop.
For starters, it has issues with its UI, including mislabeled buttons and mistranslated text. Music is also a weak point, as only two tracks loop throughout the playthrough. Additionally, the playtest had only one stage available, which doesn’t inspire much confidence in exploration or level design. Lastly, the biggest miss was not giving even a fraction of the game’s story, as a small intro or even a premise would help in setting up the game’s starting seconds.
Thankfully, though, none of these issues really lingered or affected my overall enjoyment of the game. Sealbreakers is just an amazing game to play that ticks all the boxes genre enthusiasts look for. Movement was fluid, attacks had great weight, and learning interactions rewarded mastery and experimentation—it was the perfect trifecta that captured the essence of all three genres.
I wanted to keep playing so much that I actually spent 5 hours just replaying the single stage, finding every interaction and looking for optimal combos to beat enemies. And I can’t wait for what’s in store for the game’s future, especially since they’ve already revealed other elements and skills in their other trailers.
Game8 Reviews
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Sealbreakers Product Information
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| Title | SEALBREAKERS |
|---|---|
| Release Date | TBD |
| Developer | Fire Sparrow Studio |
| Publisher | Fire Sparrow Studio |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Action, Roguelite |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Sealbreakers Official Website |
