Over the last few years, the survivors genre has exploded in popularity, thanks in no small part, obviously, to the game Vampire Survivors, from which the genre owes its namesake. While I’ve seen, played, and even reviewed a good many of these games, I’ve yet to see one that meaningfully challenges the genre’s gameplay loop, with each one playing nearly identically to each other, with nothing more than a unique setting, unique art, and some fun twists on abilities thrown in to stand out amongst the crowd. That was until Arms of God, a title that fundamentally changes the core Bullet Heaven loop in hopes of evolving the genre.
Still in Early Access, Arms of God is a Bullet Heaven wearing the skin of religious heavy-metal action, something DOOM fans are undoubtedly familiar with by now. It has you playing as high-tech sanctifiers as they battle their way across a hell-scorched modern, or slightly futuristic, ruined Earth, using the power of prayer and heavy machine guns to send sinners screaming back into the seven circles below.
Much of the core DNA of a Bullet Heaven is present in Arms of God from the very beginning. Levels have you surviving increasingly difficult waves of foes, with an autocast ranged ability, depending on your chosen settings, firing off at the closest enemy at the end of its cooldown cycle. These abilities come in the form of various firearms or holy melee relics, and you can carry up to five of them at a time, with the extra weapons mounted on servo arms jutting out of your high-tech armor. When you’re fully equipped, it’s a truly badass sight, mowing down demons in a 360-degree arc of hot lead and holy fire that looks straight out of an action movie.
The level structure is where the game makes its first, and most major, deviation away from the genre’s formula. Rather than playing on one map and surviving increasingly harder waves until the timer runs out, Arms of God has you go on a campaign of 15 levels, each one harder and longer than the last, and asks you to survive for a period of time on each to advance to the next. This begins with short ten-second levels and evolves as you get closer to the end, with the final level in a campaign being a boss fight.
Rather than unlocking new skills by leveling up, the game challenges you to kill as many demons as possible before the timer runs out in each level to gather a currency that is spent between levels. This currency can buy passive boosts, new weapons, or weapon mods, with each weapon having tons of room for improvement. What I really like about this system is that each weapon can combine with the same type to form a higher-level version, or be used as an attachment to an equipped weapon, granting a buff.
The only issue I have with this system is that, while there is a ton of room for buffs on every weapon, many of them are static, invisible number buffs. Many of them don’t really make a noticeable or interesting change to your build, and instead increase fire-rate, elemental damage, or something of the like. While this does matter, it’s not very exciting, and so it doesn’t make the builds feel as expressive as they could be.
That isn’t to say there is no build expression whatsoever. While I did say it isn’t the most exciting way to handle upgrades, you will notice when your machine gun starts firing twice as fast and for twice as much damage. Other buffs add more tangible and exciting upgrades, such as more projectiles, to your build, but I think they’re fewer and farther between, and we could have used more of them.
Perhaps my biggest issue with the game comes in its choice of maps. Many levels feature small maps, which is honestly understandable given how short the levels are, but they also feel sort of disconnected from the theming and aren’t super fun to explore or play around with. Maps do get bigger, and the later levels in every campaign are the most fun, but it certainly feels like something could be done to make the earlier maps more exciting to play on. What that is, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t help to have more boring levels at the point in the game when your build is also the weakest and least exciting it’s going to be.
All things considered, Arms of God is in a really good place for an Early Access game. It has a ton of content, including ten player characters, and lots of weapons and power-ups to experiment with, and even more is promised in the future. I have my minor complaints, but the game seems to be evolving quickly based on player feedback, and it already has a pretty solid foundation to build on. I do recommend checking the game out now if it interests you, as it isn’t in a bad state by any means and meaningfully evolves the Bullet Heaven genre while still retaining the staples that made it so fun to begin with.
Pros:
- A meaningful evolution of the familiar Bullet Heaven formula
- Lots of build expression with five equippable weapons and lots of room to mutate them
- Strong DOOM-like setting with great enemy and character variety
- Solid action and gore make you feel powerful as your builds come together
Cons:
- Lots of upgrades are very numeric, making builds less exciting than they could be
- Early campaign maps feel small, and the levels are short, which, when paired with incomplete builds, makes things feel slow to start
Try Hard Guides reviewed Arms of God on the PC. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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