Sker Ritual Review — Ritualistic Killing

Call of Duty: World at War was an immensely popular game but is probably best known for its introduction of “Zombies mode,” a zombie-shooting wave survival minigame that spawned a legacy all on its own. As far as I’m aware, Call of Duty was the first game where the iconic gameplay pattern was born: Start in a small room with a weak gun, kill increasingly stronger waves of zombies to earn money and unlock doors, with later installments adding on to the formula with quests and story elements.

This is further emphasized by the fact that games that make use of the same formula are called “zombies-like.” Considering the breakout success of Call of Duty zombies, it is a shock that Treyarch never made a standalone zombie game, and an even bigger shock that they can’t seem to release a good zombie minigame in their latest titles either.

Enter Sker Ritual, which takes the exciting formula that Call of Duty titles relegate to a minigame and gives it a full game’s worth of attention.

I went into Sker Ritual with little to no expectations. It looked fun, sure, but I already knew I was a sucker for the format, and in chasing that high of being a 10-year-old playing CoD zombies for the first time again, I was bound to appreciate any zombies-like game I came across, even if only a little. Sker Ritual, however, blew me away, and before I knew it, I was almost 10 hours into the game during my first launch.

Sker Ritual takes play on Sker Island in the year 1914. A seemingly normal person, you find yourself kidnapped or cloned (I’m not quite sure which) by the daughter of a Witch, who needs your unwilling aide to defeat her mother before she can brainwash the entire world with her siren’s song. This is briefly explained through a cutscene before you can freely take on any of the game’s current four maps, either solo, online, or with a premade party of friends.

Four maps might not sound like a lot, but trust me when I say what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality. Each map will take you at least an hour to beat through. The maps are all uniquely themed and built, are very highly detailed, and have their additions to the already large roster of monsters to shoot up.

Sker Ritual plays very similar to its inspiration above. Perk Colas, The Box, Pack-A-Punch, and other familiar mechanics return under different names. Naturally, Sker Ritual doesn’t want to stray too far from the formula it seeks to emulate to still appeal to the same fans. Where the game stands out is its theming, and to a more subtle extent, little changes and improvements were made to the gameplay you’re already familiar with.

Revives are streamlined, and universal ammo refills can be purchased cheaply from dedicated vendors. Boss fights play a prominent role throughout each level, and roguelike randomized perks (portrayed as blessings from the Welsh pantheon) appear to spice the gameplay up significantly. These are just some of the subtle changes to gameplay that you’ll take notice of while playing.

On the less subtle side, the game’s 1914 sci-fi horror aesthetics are plastered everywhere, but they are the most noticeable on the guns, which take on steampunk and periodical appearances. Some of these are clever period piece weapons or sci-fi inventions, while others are just an MP5 painted brown and gold. The aesthetic can clash in some places, but it works incredibly well overall.

Sker Ritual also taps into traditional witchcraft, a Frankensteinian scientist aesthetic, and Welsh folklore flawlessly, the latter of which is something rarely heard of in the video game industry.

Movement and gunplay are, for the most part, really solid, but I have some criticisms about both. The guns are pretty fine but have a distinct weight problem; The recoil doesn’t feel real, the reloads for most weapons feel too fast with their animations, and the impacts of bullets don’t feel heavy or satisfying enough. The guns are also modeled a little too big, and it would be much better if they were slightly smaller or if the camera was pulled back.

Movement is fast and fun, and while it’s not Titanfall, you can still be quick and even slide around. However, I noticed the game has a bad habit of getting you stuck often, especially with hordes of zombies chasing you. This feels bad every time and is the only part of the game that frustrates me.

There is one final issue with Sker Ritual, which unfortunately holds it back significantly. Sker Ritual appears to use a peer-to-peer connection for its matchmaking, meaning that if you play the game online, you will always connect to a game hosted on the host player’s internet. This can lead to some serious lag issues that disrupt a match, most noticeably a massive desync on shots that can see zombies reacting late to your shots, or worse, not at all.

Overall, I’d say Sker Ritual is a fantastic game that successfully pulls off a highly desired gameplay formula certain triple-A companies haven’t been able to in years. Though the game has one or two quirks, I would say that all that needs to change is adding dedicated servers and removing the peer-to-peer lag issues, and Sker Ritual would be the perfect Zombies game for fans itching to play the genre again.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Sker Ritual is available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.