Video Game / Roboquest

In the year 2700, man is still alive - just barely. Ecological collapse has lead to widespread desertification of the Earth's surface, and the scattered remnants of humanity eke out a hardscrabble existence in the desert on what few resources they're able to find. One day, a young scavenger girl named Max stumbles across a derelict old robot buried in the sand. Deciding to repair and reactivate it, she is soon surprised to find that the bot is ready and eager to get back to its primary mission - finding humans and guiding them to a fabled city hidden deep in the desert, where food, water and energy are plentiful. There's just one problem - the newly-rebooted Guardian isn't the only robotic servitor around, and their former companions fell off the pro-Human turnip truck a long time ago; a seething army of homicidal Evilbots stands between the dynamic duo and the comforts of a long-lost civilization.

The solution? Violence - and lots of it.

Roboquest is a high-octane FPS with Roguelite elements. Wielding a wide variety of guns, the Guardian will blast their way through a semi-linear series of levels, beginning in the arid Canyons and ending in the utopian city of Haven. Along the way, the player can also unlock a variety of powerup items, permanent upgrades in the form of Gadgets, and a roster of playable classes. It was released on November 7th of 2023, and can be purchased on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or the Xbox One.

On April 15th, the game recived the "Arsenal Update" bringing new weapons and content to the game such as a training range and summons. The game is set to release more free updates in the future, with three more updates being confirmed.

• The Guardian is the Jack of All Trades, and the default playable bot. They are one of two bots to have a conventional melee attack, along with a powerful forcefield generator. Their upgrade tree is as versatile as their base kit - if you want better gunplay, a stronger melee attack, a better forcefield, or some mixture thereof, the Guardian has you covered.
• The Ranger is The Sneaky Guy. They have less health than the Guardian and lack a melee attack, but in exchange, they get an Invisibility Cloak and powerful throwing javelins. Their upgrade tree allows them to become a stealthy assassin with enormous burst damage, a javelin-slinging boss killer, or a crowd-buster with exploding javelins.
• The Engineer is The Minion Master who occupies a middle ground between the other classes. They're not as squishy as the Ranger or Recon, but they're not as tough as the Guardian and lack the overwhelming firepower of the Commando. In exchange, their upgrade tree allows them to specialize in ways the other classes can't. When they aren't bringing a swarm of deadly, attention-grabbing Attack Drones to the fray, they'll be toting the biggest guns and dealing the highest elemental damage.
• The Commando eschews the Guardian's defensive potential for raw, overwhelming firepower. In place of a melee attack and a forcefield, the Commando gets a wrist-mounted rocket launcher and a short-ranged pocket shotgun. As the Commando fights, they accumulate Fury points that grant them stacking bonuses to fire rate, reload speed, and movement speed. Their upgrade tree allows them to focus on seizing control of the battlefield through rocket and shotgun spam; if that isn't enough firepower, the Commando's Fury passive makes them the master of More Dakka.
• The Recon is Roboquest''s dedicated melee class. Wielding a short-range teleport and a lethal knife, the Recon is even squishier than the Ranger, but has some of the highest damage potential in the game in skilled hands. Their upgrade tree allows them to either focus on becoming a blademaster with the power of Teleport Spam, or an extremely mobile, elusive gunman.
• The Elementalist is the final class unlocked, specializing in, well, elemental damage. Mantra cycles between all three elements, every 10 seconds. Comet fires a small explosive of a random element, while Trinity casts a different effect depending on the element currently selected by mantra - Fireball fires an AOE orb in a straight line that damages all enemies caught in its path. Chain Lightning fires a lightning bolt that ricochets off the first target to a nearby enemy. Ice Shard fires 5 shards that can bounce off surfaces. While the Engineer focuses on individual element, the Elementalist's focus is on all of them, being the master of applying several elemental effects at the same time. Elementalist perks focus on improving Trinity and Comet, either by adding new secondary effects to the element, improving their cool downs and damage, or even making Trinity always cast the same spell with only the element varying.

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• The Aesthetics of Technology: All technology associated with the lost city of Haven is sleek and futuristic, including the Evilbots, their mistress IRIS, the Lunar weapons, and the Guardian line of robots. The only other functioning technology to be found is all scavenger tech designed and built by Max.
• After the End: Human civilization collapsed a long time ago due to climate change. The only survivors struggle to stay alive on the surface of an Earth that has largely succumbed to desertification.
• A Girl and Her X: Max has this dynamic with the Guardian; affectionate drawings of their head, labeled "Robo-Doggie," can be found in the base camp.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: IRIS, the mastermind behind the Evilbots. Originally designed as a benevolent AI meant to safeguard the survivors of Humanity, she went mad with power and exiled humanity to the desert. Aggressively averted by the Guardian, who seems to be completely sapient but remains benevolent throughout the entire game.
• All Your Powers Combined: Some upgrades and weapons (depending on what they roll with) let you use all three elements at once. That said, this can result in a Master of None situation, as you're not really effective with all three compared to building into a single element.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: While staying on the move is a given for all classes, the Commando uses this as a strategy, focusing on nonstop, overwhelming firepower to obliterate crowds.
• Attack Drone: The Engineer can deploy up to two Drones at a time by default, giving them some backup in a firefight. They can potentially get more than three depending on upgrades.
• Badass and Child Duo: Oh, yeah. The Guardian is an absolute wrecking machine that can mow down legions of Evilbots singlehandedly; Max is never seen fighting herself, but the non-Lunar weapons were all designed and built by her.
• Beat the Curse Out of Him: The final confrontation with IRIS on the Moon sees the Guardian thrash her senseless and dropkick her core straight out of the massive, squid-like carapace she occupies for her first phase. Once they're through with her, all it takes is a firm slap from Max to return her to normal.
• Benevolent A.I.: Data Logs scattered throughout the game world heavily imply IRIS used to be one. After being thrashed by the Guardian, she's snapped out of her insanity and pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
• Boring, but Practical: Some of the more plain upgrades can be this. Sure, just increasing fire rate or reload speed will never be anything to write home about, but compared to some of the later upgrades that require you to build heavily into them for max effect, these ones will work effectively for all builds no matter what.
• Chain Lightning: Some upgrades and items give Shock damage this feature, which can be devastating if enemies are bunched up.
• Combos: The Engineer can get an upgrade that powers up the Blaster when using Deploy, and if done right, lets them do a "one two" pattern of healing/deploying drones and firing off powerful Blaster shots alongside the running and gunning.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Enemies struck with a Marking attack will take extra damage. One upgrade applies this to non-Burn damage against Burning enemies.
• Damage Over Time: Burn causes enemies to instantly ignite and take damage while they're burning.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Close range weapons like the Power Fists or Dual Shredders deal TONS of damage and give healing cells for each kill, but must be used at close range, making using them situational.
• Disk One Nuke: Sniper Rifles. Early-game most enemies are slower and have low enough health that most sniper weapons can one-shot them from a safe distance. While snipers keep up in mid to late game, they're damage is offset more by the low ammo and slow firing rate.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: Downplayed. You can't shoot while sprinting, but otherwise accuracy doesn't change even if you get multiple boosts to movement speed. Played straight with Heavy weapons, which give movement penalties if you move while shooting.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: The formerly-benevolent IRIS went mad with power and greed after discovering sinister purple crystals that enormously boosted her power and computational output. They also drove her completely insane.
• Energy Weapon: Many weapons are energy based, using an overheat mechanic rather than rounds and having different attribute than their ballistic counterparts.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The three elements available are Burn, Cryo, and Shock. Burn deals extra damage over time, Cryo slows and eventually freezes, and Shock stuns after enough build up.
• Gatling Good: Two miniguns, the Mammoth Minigun and the Typhoon Minigun are available for the Guardian to use. They have very high firerates and high ammo and energy counts, offset by their low damage and slowing down movement when firing.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: After being soundly thrashed by the Guardian, Max jolts IRIS out of her insanity with a well-placed smack to the face.
• Goomba Stomp: Referred to as a "headbonk", it's exactly what it sounds like. Some upgrades make it more lethal, encouraging bouncing on enemies' heads to lay on the hurt.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: A zig-zagged example. The game heavily implies that IRIS designed the Guardians and dispatched them on their mission to begin with; a data log eventually confirms that this is the case. However, the IRIS who is ultimately defeated by the Guardian has almost nothing in common with the IRIS who deployed them.
• Homemade Flamethrower: The Kramer is the only true Flamethrower in the game, and is clearly one of Max's creations.
• Kid Hero: Max's exact age is never stated, but her behavior suggests she can't be much older than her mid-teens. This doesn't stop her from repairing the Guardian and designing a good portion of their arsenal herself; by the end of the game, she's indirectly saved humanity.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Played with. The Lunar line of weapons are energy-based; they are rarely superior stat-wise to their more common counterparts, but usually compensate for the difference with a useful perk. For instance, the Typhoon minigun does less damage than its ballistic counterpart, but has a faster firing speed and homing properties.
• Nonstandard Game Over: Standing too close to Billy Boom for too long, which trigger his proximity sensors, or damaging him too much before deactivating his kill switch when he's at low health causes him to detonate into a massive explosion visible from orbit, taking your robot with him and ending your run immediately. Doing this also grants you an achievement.
• Plasma Cannon: Energy weapons tend to be this to varying degrees, but the heavier ones play it straighter by being large, bulkier, and devastating with their payloads.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Since many of the guns were designed by Max, a few of them have such hardboiled design elements as friendship bracelets and bright pastel color schemes. Naturally this does nothing to hamper their lethality, and the Guardian is no less of a badass for using them to smash through hordes of robots.
• Robot Buddy: The Guardian not only protects Max on their journey through the desert, they seem to eagerly take to the role of being her BFF.
• Secondary Fire: A potential addition to weapons once they drop. These range from adding an on-demand Rocket Jump to marking enemies for a Damage-Increasing Debuff to launching shotgun blasts.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Of the various shotguns and shotgun-like weapons, there's the standard Bull Shotgun, the quicker but shorter range Dual Sawed Offs and the highly damaging Behemoth Shotgun. While they all share short range, they make up for it with power and coverage.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Downplayed. Falloff damage does not apply in this game, so shotgun bullets can travel forever until they hit an enemy or a solid surface. However, they're still in a spread formation, so they can miss at long ranges, still encouraging getting close for max damage, but not penalizing you if you're a little distance away.
• Sniper Rifle: Of various designs and technologies, from the humble bolt-action to the advanced apparatus that fires hard hitting beams.
• Wrench Wench: Max, natch. She's a scavenger girl who's never known anything other than the desert, but she has enough technical know-how to repair the Guardian, rig up an old van into a hovercraft, and design the vast majority of the Guardian's arsenal herself.