Hull Rupture Review — Puny Humans!

Hull Rupture is a time-management, tower-defense roguelike that sees you playing as a rogue AI overlord, commanding a ship both run and fueled by human cattle as you fend off attacks from interstellar forces hoping to destroy you. Your goal is to survive 20 days until you can decipher the aliens’ computer systems and then take over the entire galaxy.

There is an immediate comparison my mind made when booting up Hull Rupture for the first time, and it was Fallout Shelter. Anyone who has played that title might know what I mean: I’m not sure if Fallout Shelter invented that sort of grid-based, room-by-room, resource-production building gameplay, but it is most certainly the title that popularized it when it released over ten years ago. The mechanical system is so similar that I can make an easy comparison for players looking into Hull Rupture by saying it is Fallout Shelter with tower defense elements: You build resource-producing rooms space by space and use those resources to build towers and units to defend your core room, which cannot be moved.

It is an immediate and addicting gameplay loop that doesn’t require much of a tutorial to get you hooked. You are given time to improve your base before each wave of alien attackers strikes your hull, attempting to breach (hey, that’s where the title comes from!) and destroy your AI’s module. They all enter the same place to do so, so you don’t have to worry about expanding your ship creating more access points for aliens to attack. Your towers hug the exterior of the ship and shoot at aliens as they land, and your last line of defense is the units inside your hangar, who fight anything that pierces through. Your ship’s heart is right next to the hangar, so you also can’t extend travel time for attacking units by building outward.

The loop is simple and addicting, and the game is fast-paced enough to keep you from getting bored, with time speed options to further customize the experience. There is a decent amount of turrets, modules, and resources to discover and use, so the actual progression of the game isn’t something you’re going to burn through quickly, even as you start to get better at it.

This is made more true by the fact that the game contains roguelike randomization for module parts and resources. After each wave, you can buy procedurally selected modules from a shop to add to your ship. You need certain resources to build certain modules or turrets, or to produce other resources, and you need specifically shaped rooms to place each module. This means you can’t rely on the same progression every game, as your access to the modules, and therefore the resources, is almost totally up to chance, forcing you to make do with what you have.

This can kind of be a burden at times, as certain resources are needed to proceed, build or upgrade your turrets, or expand your ship with new rooms, but there is never a guarantee you’re going to get access to these resources. You can very easily get gatekept from progression by chance.

I found myself pretty frustrated by just how frequently I was held back by the same missing resources. Isotopes are necessary to upgrade most turrets. Plasteel is needed to build more ship modules. Yet these two modules were consistently the ones I found the least through the reward system. It was bad enough that, of the several dozen games I played, I drew one of these modules only three or four times, and never both in the same run. Roguelike games should have a randomizing factor that changes how you build your character, or in this case your defenses, but you shouldn’t be gatekept from completion because you weren’t able to pull the resources you needed to actually survive.

This problem could be circumvented with a currency exchange, or by providing multiple avenues for players to build the structures or upgrades they need to progress. And the game does provide both, but they are just as hard to discover as the resource modules themselves, which makes them kind of moot. Suffice it to say, the biggest drawback to the game is the way it manages to gatekeep progression behind randomization, and not in the way you would expect from a roguelike.

Still, the game was fun and challenging in an engaging way when it wasn’t being outright held back by the punishing randomization. Something I particularly enjoyed was the game’s art direction: All of Hull Rupture is displayed through a beautiful pixelated art style that is also fully animated. While the animation loops are simple, I never got bored of staring at them throughout my playthrough. There is enough detail and movement that I didn’t even mind that upgraded modules and guns didn’t have visual differences, something I usually advocate heavily for in games (I like to see something new when I upgrade my stuff, thanks).

The game was also pretty funny, delivering some great visual gags and some jokes in its random event writing. It never takes itself too seriously, which makes the pop culture references feel less random, coming off more like unintrusive little gags than odd or out-of-place references.

Overall, I enjoyed Hull Rupture. It is a fun, albeit challenging, experience, and the challenge doesn’t always feel intentional, since the game is held back by how it handles randomization. It has a fair bit of replayability, allowing you to go back and play with new modifiers and ship builds. I would definitely recommend Hull Rupture to anyone thinking about giving it a try.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam key for this PC review of Hull Rupture. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Hull Rupture is available on Steam.