The Ascent is an anticipated Xbox Game Pass title and, despite some rather mixed previews from those who got a chance to try out the game early, it has remained firmly on the radar of players leading up to its recent launch. Developed by Neon Giant and published by Curve Giant, The Ascent is a cyberpunk-themed action-RPG that features dark narrative beats and a dystopian story. While it does have some notable faults, The Ascent successfully manages to create a living world that is a great setting for its fluid action.
At the most basic level, The Ascent is a simple throwback to the 90s, when twin-stick shooters were much more prominent. This title also uses a top-down perspective and is fairly easy to pick up and play, with the left stick used for movement, the right for aiming, and the right trigger for firing the weapon. The Ascent does add some modern mechanics, too, in the form of a dodge skill and the ability to crouch behind cover. These work reasonably well and add some extra flavor to the base gameplay, ensuring that players will not be able to just run and gun through levels.
The Ascent combat is quite satisfying, and features a huge variety of weapons and items, such as grenades and turrets. These can be equipped, meaning that players can experiment with different strategies and decide what combination works best. The Ascent also offers four augmentation slots available to use. Some of these are passive and will increase stats such as health but there are also active ones that have a significant effect on gameplay. The earliest example is the Hydraulic Slam, a sort of shockwave punch that will instantly kill enemies caught in its blast.
As an action RPG, The Ascent also features a smattering of roleplaying elements. There’s plenty of loot to discover, ranging from new augmentations to armor. What is interesting, however, is that the loot all has the same level and can be upgraded over time. This gets rid of the need to constantly grind to try and find better equipment but might turn off more experienced looter shooter fans who enjoy discovering rare and powerful weapons. There’s also skill points in The Ascent that can level up four attributes and allow players to specialize in specific skills.
The final major aspect of gameplay in The Ascent comes in exploration. The world of Veles is large and filled with characters and locations to find, which is essential to progressing and improving. It’s here that the game struggles somewhat, with it being far too easy to come up against groups of enemies that are too strong to fight. The only way to move forward in these instances is to grind out battles with weaker enemies to get enough XP to level up. That can be frustrating for those who don’t want to explore every single aspect of Veles, as going through just the main quest will pose a number of prominent stumbling blocks.
For the most part, the writing in The Ascent is another strength. There’s a large cast of characters and lots of side quests to complete, and the majority of both of those are enjoyable and interesting. Every individual that players come across helps to expand the world. The main story, which sees players trying to stop nefarious groups from seizing control of Veles following the sudden collapse of The Ascent Group, doesn’t stand out quite as much as its side content, but is still compelling enough to keep most users engaged to the end.
Although The Ascent is far from perfect, it gets more right than it does wrong and is most successful at creating a world that is filled with interesting characters and fun to explore. The sections that require some grinding might frustrate, but there is enough variety in the combat to keep the gameplay from becoming stale thanks to the wide array of weapons and the cover mechanics. Add in the possibility for co-op multiplayer with some friends and The Ascent can certainly provide hours of riotous fun, especially with a release on Xbox Game Pass day one.
The Ascent will be releasing today, July 29, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Screen Rant was provided with a digital Xbox code for the purposes of this review.
