| CyberCorp | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
CyberCorp is an isometric looter shooter where you must do battle against thugs and synthetics to uncover the conspiracies surrounding a dystopian city. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well , and if it's worth buying.
CyberCorp Review Overview
What is CyberCorp?
The year is 2084, and the world has spiraled into a cyberpunk dystopia. Neon-lit streets pulse with danger, and megacorporations reign supreme. Among them, CyberCorp is just another power player in the shadows, but for you, it’s everything. You are a Synth—a highly skilled operative with a newly enhanced cybernetic body, designed for one purpose: to undertake dangerous missions for the corporation.
CyberCorp is a top-down looter shooter where aggressive gunplay and push-forward tactics are the name of the game. Players are encouraged to be relentless, seizing every opportunity and charging ahead with determination. You and up to two other Synths—elite CyberCorp agents—will battle through maze-like city streets, facing relentless waves of enemy operatives in your quest for domination.
CyberCorp features:
⚫︎ Isometric shooter gameplay
⚫︎ Looter shooter mechanics
⚫︎ Different weapon types
⚫︎ Main, secondary, and melee weapon slots
⚫︎ Split damage types between Kinetic and Energy
⚫︎ Repaintable armor
⚫︎ Invasion events reminiscent of Dark Souls games.
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about CyberCorp's gameplay and story.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Steam |
 Epic Games |
 eShop |
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| Wishlist Only | $14.99 | ||||
CyberCorp Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Above-Textbook Shooter Gameplay Weapon Variety Pops |
Weird Boss Fights Dull Combat Looter Shooter Stats Overall Lack of Polish |
CyberCorp Overall Score - 60/100
CyberCorp is an above average game severely weighed down by its general lack of excitement, novelty, and polish.And unfortunately, it’s competing in a genre dominated by a lot of exciting finds. It would take far too much time to fix everything missing from the game, but considering its early access state, CyberCorp has plenty of time to spare.
CyberCorp Story - 5/10
While CyberCorp definitely has a narrative, the writing makes each scenario seem so forced that it’s kind of funny. There were many times when the dialogues simply didn’t fit the scene, too. If anything, the story feels more like it’s just there for the sake of being there. It’s not very engaging, and what tiny character development there is was kind of shoved in for formality’s sake.
CyberCorp Gameplay - 6/10
CyberCorp’s core gameplay loop is nicely executed, built upon the foundations laid by its predecessors. Novelty isn’t its strength, though. At most, it’s simply a well-made system with a few problems to iron out, such as its weird boss battles, terrible melee combat, and its general lack of polish. Oh, and if it can make the fighting much more exciting, then that would be even better.
CyberCorp Visuals - 6/10
Even with all the pretty lights and shadows, much of CyberCorp’s visuals leave much to be desired. It suffers from an array of visual jank, complete with poorly animated sprites and cutscenes. The character artworks themselves look like they were aiming for grittiness instead of visual appeal. Your main hub even looks like it used to be a haunted house with how empty it is outside of the excessive amounts of monitors all over the place.
CyberCorp Audio - 7/10
A mixed bag if there ever was one. At the very least, it leans more heavily on the positive due to its great firearm sound effects and its nice tunes. It’s enough to blow away the disappointingly boring sounds of your pool noodle—I mean sword hitting enemies, the hilariously wet-sounding execution sound effects, and the complete lack of voice acting.
CyberCorp Value for Money - 6/10
What’s really great about these types of games is that they have the potential to be monstrous timesinks without making you notice. At the moment, however, CyberCorp is way too much of a rough-around-the-edges early access title. Even if its $14.99 price tag is relatively cheap, there are way too many better top-down shooters at the same price point. Fortunately, the game does have potential to become a banger, so at least it’s worth keeping an eye out for.
CyberCorp Review: Unpolished With Unrealized Potential
Well, I have to say, playing CyberCorp was quite an experience. It was so superficial that it didn’t take me more than an hour playing to realize it.
Choosing where to begin is quite meaningless in that sense, as every aspect of the game has issues that it needs to iron out desperately. However, thankfully, we can just rely on Game8’s scoring system to decide the order for us.
So let’s tackle CyberCorp’s narrative first.
It’s boring and inconsequential. That’s it. Review’s over.
Right from the get-go, it fails to start with a captivating hook to get its players interested in its story. Not only that, the narrative feels forced and unnatural, almost as if it was more interested in fabricating scenarios than letting them create themselves. There is no engaging with the plot when it seems to be doing its best to always be just out of arm’s reach.
Quite a shame, really, considering that the world does seem like it’s an interesting one.
Gameplay-wise, the game does fare much better. Although considering its mid-tier story, that’s not a very high hurdle to overcome. Essentially, it’s the kind of gameplay anybody with experience playing isometric shooters already has experience with. But while it’s also a looter shooter and in possession of an uncommon reload mechanic with a variety of weapons, the core gameplay is actually the same for each and every single instance.
All you really need to do to win is to moonwalk your way out of trouble while spraying bullets in the general direction of your enemies. But to be fair, I really really like the reloading mechanic.
It’s almost like I’m playing SYNTHETIK again, but less exciting.
On the other hand, CyberCorp’s audiovisuals are entirely a mixed bag. Most of its issues can be attributed to its early access state, yes. But to be honest, these problems should have been immediately apparent to the developers before any sort of public testing happened.
I mean, how hard is it to notice that their sword combat animations are stiffer than twigs? Or that the sound effects for them are duller than a pool noodle? Sure, the lights and sights are pretty and the gun sound effects are decent. But the faults are oftentimes more noticeable, easily making the game look less than what it actually is.
So, is CyberCorp worth your money? It’s pretty cheap, and $14.99 is at roughly the same ballpark as other isometric shooters and looter shooters of its class. The answer is unfortunately no. It has way too many things it should touch up on. Fortunately, though, by the very nature of early access titles, CyberCorp has a lot of time on its hands.
Pros of CyberCorp
| Things CyberCorp Got Right |
|---|
|
Above-Textbook Shooter Gameplay Weapon Variety Pops |
Above-Textbook Shooter Gameplay
At first glance, CyberCorp looks like any run-of-the-mill isometric looter shooter. That’s because it is. Mechanically, at least. With decent enough execution, using a tried and tested foundation for its gameplay is already enough to give it a passing grade. But CyberCorp does have a few tricks up its sleeve to make the experience at least a little bit more interesting.
The most obvious of which is the reloading mechanic. It’s something SYNTHETIK players would recognize immediately; a quick time event-like (QTE) prompt that appears when you’re trying to reload your weapon.
That is, during reload, a gray bar with a certain section of it highlighted in gold will appear. A white bar will slowly fill the gauge from the left, indicating the progress of your reload. During that time, once the white bar passes through the golden section, you can press the reload prompt or the primary fire button again.
If successful, the weapon will instantly reload and you can continue firing. But if you fail to hit the sweet spot, or don’t try at all, you will be forced to wait through the entire thing before you can fire your weapon again. This may seem troublesome at first, but once you get into the rhythm, you can hit those sweet spots over and over without even trying.
This relatively minor addition to the gameplay mechanics may not seem much, but in the grand scheme of things, it adds a lot of depth to the gameplay, discouraging reckless behavior and promoting more methodical approaches. This is especially true during the late game when enemies are powerful enough to take huge chunks out of your health with one hit.
On top of the reload QTE, your playable character also has skills he can use to manipulate the flow of battle. These may not have the same impact as simply shooting your gun most of the time, but they’re useful enough to make things even more interesting than the norm.
Weapon Variety Pops
Having weapon variety means nothing if some (or all) of them have overlapping properties. For example, having a single-shot rifle with the same effective range as a shotgun slug kind of makes the former kind of useless, right? While some first person shooter (FPS) games eliminate this by making the shotgun round disappear from existence after surpassing a certain range, others such as CyberCorp take a much more conventional approach:
They just let it be.
It’s a straightforward answer the game backs by having a specialized selection of weapons and mechanics that definitively sets a weapon’s effectiveness and niche. Take the humble SMG and revolver, for instance. Both serve as possible sidearms, but the former has the obvious advantage of high firing rate, while the latter has better damage in exchange for being more troublesome to use.
Each weapon class even has their own reload QTE timings, such as a pistol’s wide berth near the end of the bar, making them far easier to reload quickly, and a rifle’s more difficult, narrow window of opportunity in the middle. This further expresses their unique uses in combat as a reliable sidearm or a more complex main weapon.
Cons of CyberCorp
| Things That CyberCorp Can Improve |
|---|
|
Weird Boss Fights Dull Combat Looter Shooter Stats Overall Lack of Polish |
Weird Boss Fights
Boss fights are typically not part of the genre’s strongest suits. The experience can vary from epic and fast-paced life-or-death battles to relatively relaxed ones where all you have to do is moonwalk away from the boss while shooting. CyberCorp’s, on the other hand, is… well, it’s an experience, that’s for sure.
There’s essentially three types of bosses. The first two types are the familiar single or multi-phase boss fights we’re all used to by now. As for the third… imagine a boss with two phases. Now, imagine that the only difference between those phases is its damage output. There’s no transformation scene, no monologue congratulating you for cornering it, or anything of the sort. The boss just goes from being a bullet sponge to a bullet sponge with a nuclear payload without warning.
Fun, right? No, it’s not. But again, it is an experience to be experienced.
Dull Combat
You would be hard-pressed to gain any aesthetic gratification by focusing or even interacting with CyberCor’s melee combat. Not only are its motions utterly dull, but the sound effects are also enough to put you to sleep. For some reason, it also deals shameful damage despite being a last resort weapon without the range of guns.
And don’t get me started with the execution mechanic for low health enemies. I feel as if it only exists to undercut the game’s already moderate pace even further.
Its gunplay definitely fares much better, though. It’s very textbook and uses either reliable mechanics or tested novelties. However… it’s just not very fun. Yes, there’s a lot of weapons to play with, but the gameplay loop doesn’t change regardless of which one you use. Everything involves moonwalking and shooting your enemies to death.
Looter Shooter Stats
Look, I’m well aware that the game is a looter shooter, so its dependency on RNG shouldn’t even be a surprise. But that’s not what caught me off-guard in the first place. What made my eyebrows rise a few notches was the fact that every single one of your stats depends on your loot. In essence, you are what you wear in this game. While this may sound nice at first, it’s quite restrictive in the long term as the power levels get higher and higher.
For example, if you’re explicitly aiming for a certain build, you’ll have zero progress in becoming stronger until you get the particular drops you need. Unlike other looter shooters like Borderlands 2 with their player level also affecting character growth, you have no choice but to continue farming until you get your loot or make compromises. Otherwise, you’re stuck at that power level.
Overall Lack of Polish
At the moment, it’s impossible to not notice that CyberCorp feels like an incomplete game. It suffers from the occasional glitches, jank, and all of the other quirks that you would expect from a game that wouldn’t pass as a full release title.
Heck, I would argue that it doesn’t even look ready for an early access release yet. Textures bugging out and phasing through walls is fine and all, sure, but cutscene animations that look like they were made in GMod? A shop without an explicit selling tab? Getting locked out of the objective if you die whilst being invaded? Those are things that are easy enough to notice by simply playing through the game like normal.
So why are they still there?
Is CyberCorp Worth It?
Wait for a few more patches
It’s difficult to recommend CyberCorp as it is right now. There are far too many better competitors at the same price point or even cheaper at the moment. On top of that, much of the game feels unfinished, even for early access standards. It does have potential, though. As long as the developers iron out the game through its following patches, it may just become a decent competitor amongst its slew of competitors.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
Epic Games |
eShop |
|||
| Wishlist Only | $14.99 | ||||
CyberCorp FAQ
Does CyberCorp have co-op?
Yes, you can invite your friends and play missions with parties of up to 3 people.
Are there different playable characters in CyberCorp?
You’ll only have access to one character that you can customize.
Game8 Reviews
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CyberCorp Product Information
 | |
| Title | CYBERCORP |
|---|---|
| Release Date | August 19, 2024 (PC) January 30, 2025 (Nintendo Switch) |
| Developer | Megame |
| Publisher | Megame |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam, Epic Games), Nintendo Switch |
| Genre | Action, Shooting, Indie |
| Number of Players | 1-3 (Online Co-op Multiplayer) |
| Rating | IARC 16+ |
| Official Website | CyberCorp Official Website |
