Reality Break is a fast-paced sci-fi ARPG where you use your reality-warping powers to destroy enemy ships and collect loot. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Reality Break Review Overview
What is Reality Break?
Reality Break (or Reality/Break) is a fast-paced, top-down sci-fi ARPG shooter where players pilot their own spaceship, jumping between quadrants of the galaxy—and even across realities—while battling enemy swarms and looting endlessly.
With a unique cyclical roguelite progression system, deep loot management reminiscent of Borderlands, and a story spanning multiple dimensions, Reality Break delivers hours of intense ship-to-ship combat and near-limitless customization.
Reality Break features:
⚫︎ Unique “Rewrite” mechanic for gear stat customization
⚫︎ Opt-in roguelite progression systems
⚫︎ Twin-stick shooter controls
⚫︎ In-run level-up system with active and passive skill trees
⚫︎ Near-endless Gear Permutations
 Steam |
| $24.99 |
Reality Break Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Loot Goblins Rejoice! Very Solid Combat Mechanics |
Just Barely Not Worth the All the Rewinds Fast Action, Slow Progress Particle Effects Might Be An Accessibility Issue |
Reality Break Overall Score - 72/100
Reality Break is a game of extremes.
The combat is fantastic, the loot system is top-tier, and the in-run mechanics are engaging across the board (except, perhaps, the story). On the other hand, the metagame progression and accessibility options are about as barebones as they can get. If you can’t fully appreciate one or forgive the other, you’re going to feel these extremes.
For all its sci-fi pedigree, Reality Break comes with an equal share of issues that need fixing. Its breakneck combat is something truly special, but everything else might be too sluggish to let it truly take off.
Reality Break Story - 6/10
Reality Break’s story sits just a notch above standard sci-fi slop—and I say that with affection. Its characters are deliberately cookie-cutter to match the game’s intentionally repetitive gameplay, and while the premise isn’t groundbreaking, it’s engaging enough. Overall, the story is the least impressive part of the package, but it’s never just set dressing or, worse, a drag on the experience.
Reality Break Gameplay - 8/10
Making a game’s core mechanics intentionally repetitive—even down to the dialogue choices—is a bold move, even for a rogue-lite. But Reality Break pulls it off remarkably well, offering just enough variety between cycles to keep you pushing forward. Suppose you can look past the glacial pacing of… well… everything (thanks to all the repetition) and instead focus on its stellar combat, loot-heavy mechanics, and deep min-max potential. In that case, you’ve got a solid title that could easily keep you hooked for hundreds of hours.
Reality Break Visuals - 7/10
Reality Break takes a bold approach to making its top-down POV visually engaging, especially given that it’s working with, at most, 2.5 dimensions. The ship designs are impressively detailed, and the particle effects are downright spectacular—assuming you’re not prone to seizures. That said, there’s not much variety between areas or characters, and after enough time, everything starts to blur together as you push through the game’s lengthy runtime.
Reality Break Audio - 8/10
Reality Break’s audio sticks to music and sound effects, with no real voice acting to speak of. Normally, I’d count that as a bigger downside, but given how often the game repeats itself through its roguelite progression, the absence of voice work actually feels like a blessing in disguise. The music and sound effects hold up well, too—the former being especially catchy for a sci-fi soundtrack.
Reality Break Value for Money - 7/10
Reality Break justifies most of its price through sheer playtime alone. With all the replayability it offers—despite its repetitive nature and limited variety—it’s easy to see the $25 price tag as fair. Even if the game wears you out before you get your money’s worth, it’s still not costly enough to feel like a regrettable purchase in the end.
Reality Break: Breakneck Space Combat, Sluggish Everything Else
I can’t get enough of roguelikes—especially considering my all-time favorite game, Edmund McMillen’s The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. There’s something almost addictively satisfying about fighting tooth and nail through a brutal run, only to lose everything, pick yourself up, and try again—this time a little stronger, a little wiser. That Edge of Tomorrow-esque loop of trial, error, and triumph keeps you coming back for just one more run
until the game has its hooks in you for good.
Given that my golden standard for roguelikes is a twin-stick shooter, it’s no surprise Reality Break caught my eye. Sure, it’s technically a rogue-lite rather than a true roguelike—no permadeath, resets are voluntary, and forget twin-stick controls, this one’s strictly mouse-and-keyboard—but the comparison made sense when I first drew it. Or at least, I expected it to.
What I got was something different. The pieces were there, but they didn’t quite fit the way I thought they would. That doesn’t mean I disliked what I found—far from it. Reality Break has plenty of strengths, but through the lens of a roguelike aficionado, even with some concessions for what it actually is, it’s missing a few key elements. So, hop in the cockpit, everyone—it’s time to review this game!
Elite, Armed, and Dangerous…Again…and Again…
Conceptually, Reality Break (or as I prefer to stylize it, Reality/Break) is exactly what it says on the tin. You see an Asteroids-adjacent, top-down sci-fi shooter, and—surprise—that’s exactly what you get. A solid 90% of the game is just shooting enemies and getting to the next place where you can shoot more enemies. The other 10%? We’ll get to that. But what really makes this game stand out is its namesake: breaking reality.
Now, this part of the game’s concept is a bit more complex than just “press button, enemy die”—as you’d hope for something called reality breaking—but at its core, it comes down to two things: in-run reality-breaking and metagame reality-breaking.
Breaking reality within each run revolves around your gear and skills. You’re essentially using the Fate Core—your ship’s esoteric, reality-warping MacGuffin—to reroll equipment stats, upgrade effects, or expand your arsenal of passive and active skills. These tweaks cost a special currency earned by defeating enemies, but they don’t carry over between runs and remain tied to the specific gear you modify.
Breaking reality as a metagame progression works differently, following a structure familiar to other roguelites. Any currency gained for long-term upgrades is useless within a single run. Here, that currency is Reality Points, earned by completing missions, progressing the story, and surviving as long as possible in the Totally Accurate Battlegrounds-style Gulag section that kicks in whenever you permanently die. The longer you last, the more you get.
Once you spend your RP, you unlock more bonuses to access within each run. And it’s not just stat boosts—though those are in there, too. You also gain access to entirely new mechanics and gameplay features that were previously unavailable, like Expert Mission goals for extra RP, adjustable difficulty levels, gear-selling, and even story progression.
That’s right, Reality Break has a story. These kinds of shooters usually don’t lean heavily into narrative, but this one has loads of it. Well—to be more accurate, it has one middling sci-fi drama that you have to experience every time you restart your reality. And sometimes, it’ll even kill you just to force a restart.
It’s inoffensive and decently written—just a hair above average. I’d say it does more good than harm for the game overall, but its biggest flaw has to be how it repeats in every cycle. Sure, it rewards persistence with some meta changes to certain scenes, but those moments are buried under paragraphs of dialogue I’ve already read and don’t particularly want to read again.
At times, this makes the game feel tedious—both narratively and mechanically—but the in-between moments are engaging enough that it doesn’t drag the whole experience down.
Danger, Dogfights, and Loot in Deep Space
Now it’s time to talk about the remaining 10% of the game—though you’d be forgiven for thinking it takes up way more space, because there’s so much of it: loot.
The Binding of Isaac has items and power-ups you pick up and use in-game, but Reality Break takes a more RPG-inspired approach, with an equipment slot system covering every part of your ship. On top of that, its loot drop system emulates—and arguably rivals—Borderlands, complete with item rarities, drop rates, and the Rewriting System (the formal name for in-run reality-breaking).
Killing enemies leaves their precious cargo and parts floating in the void for you to collect, but loot isn’t limited to the battlefield. You can also buy gear from various ports and stations or stumble upon it for free inside random crates drifting through space. The sheer depth of this loot system is impressive, giving players the freedom to build practically anything—as long as they have the patience for it.
If you want to supercharge your railgun, you can hunt down armor plating, CPUs, thrusters, and targeting computers with secondary effects that specifically enhance it. If you’d rather go full Dark Souls in space—dodging attacks and countering in close range—you can do that too, with the right thrusters and weapon setup. The possibilities are nearly endless… but that also comes with drawbacks.
With the absurd number of equippable items, variable stats, upgradeable effects, secondary attributes, and loot sources, the early game can feel all over the place. Before you unlock the ability to sell items anywhere and filter out unwanted loot, the experience leans less toward RPG where you can build anything
and more toward RPG where you make do with whatever scraps you get.
Obviously, this is by design—the increasing customization options serve as an incentive to progress using RP—but I think those options arrive too slowly, making the early game feel like a slog. And as you’ll see in the next section, this is far from the only area where pacing and progression are glacial at best.
Less Fun the Umpteenth Time Around…If You Last That Long
I’ve alluded to—and outright talked about—the game’s cyclical progression several times already, but now it’s time to lay it all out in full. And, fittingly, in a section dedicated to complaining about it.
As much as I enjoy the cycle of dying and coming back stronger, that’s usually within the context of a faster-paced, run-centric game like The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Enter the Gungeon, or, to a lesser extent, Darkest Dungeon 2. Reality Break takes a different approach—and while it certainly sets the game apart, it doesn’t do so in a flattering way.
Whenever you die in this game, you just respawn. You keep your gear, and the only real penalty is being sent back to the starting point of the current area (along with losing certain missions). The actual metaprogression—earning RP—only happens when you’re erased, which means breaking the timeline and restarting it. The amount of RP you gain depends on your performance in the previous run.
The first time this happens, it’s tied to a specific story beat. After that, you can trigger it at any time through the character menu. The good part is that you control when the cycle resets. The bad part? RP accumulates so slowly that hitting your previous checkpoint again often isn’t worth the time.
Now add to that the fact that everything resets—including every story mission and every dialogue sequence—and the tedium really starts to set in. Sure, some characters acknowledge the repetition with meta commentary, but that’s a pretty weak reward when you’re slogging through the same walls of text over and over again.
This all puts a damper on the game’s replayability. Apart from the ability to reset whenever you want, every run needs some kind of meaningful variety and a stronger sense of progress to keep things fresh. As it stands, you’ll likely sink enough hours into Reality Break to justify its price—but that’s not exactly the highest bar to clear.
Great Combat on Top of All That, If You Don’t Seize
Although the glacial metaprogression really gets to me, the runs themselves—the moment-to-moment action—are more than worth the time and skill investment. They’re as fleshed out as they are well executed.
There’s a great variety of primary and secondary weapons to experiment with, along with a wide range of thrusters that let you tweak your mobility. The controls are crisp and intuitive, keeping the flow smooth even during extended dogfights.
The skills, too, are well-designed, encouraging combos that can completely turn the tide of a fight if used correctly. Paired with the depth of loot generation and modification, Reality Break delivers a Top Gun-level experience—assuming you can keep up with the chaos.
And that brings me to a big caveat: this game is an absolute assault on the senses.
Reality Break goes hard on the particle effects, explosions, and flashing lights. It might not be outright dangerous for photosensitive players, but it’s definitely something that should have at least a warning—except, there isn’t one anywhere in the game.
It’s an easily fixable accessibility issue, and with a few updates, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. Unlike, say… the slowest metagame progression I’ve ever seen.
Is Reality Break Worth It?
You’ll Be Playing A Lot of It, That’s For Sure
A lot of Reality Break’s value comes from the sheer amount of playtime required to make meaningful progress. If that grind works for you, then you’re looking at a solid game for a reasonable $24.99. Otherwise, the middling story and sluggish progression might wear you down before you ever reach escape velocity.
That said, $24.99 isn’t a huge gamble. Whether you’re in for a penny or a pound, chances are you won’t regret giving this game a shot.
| Steam |
$24.99 |
Reality Break FAQ
Is Reality Break Playable as a Normal ARPG, or are Players Required to Restart their Game to Progress?
According to Reality Break’s developer, Courtney, while the game does have a few built-in campaign restarts to introduce players to the system, they aren’t mandatory beyond that. After those initial resets, players can choose to restart at their discretion—or they can simply continue playing as an ARPG indefinitely. That said, the game does include systems to incentivize restarts, particularly through its meta-progression mechanics.
How Do I Unlock Warship and Capital Ship Classes in Reality Break?
At the time of writing, there are no other ship classes in Reality Break. The only way for players to equip Warship and Capital Class equipment is to rewrite their parameters using the Fate Core.
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Reality Break Product Information
 |
|
| Title | REALITY BREAK |
|---|---|
| Release Date | February 10, 2025 |
| Developer | Element Games, LLC |
| Publisher | Element Games, LLC |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Action, RPG, Roguelite |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Reality Break Website |
