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The Ascent
Released On: Jul 29, 2021
74
7.6
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 56 Critic Reviews
74
45% Positive
25 Reviews
25 Reviews
46% Mixed
26 Reviews
26 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 56 Critic Reviews
74
45% Positive
25 Reviews
25 Reviews
46% Mixed
26 Reviews
26 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The Ascent provides you with a unique opportunity to visit the not-so-distant dystopic future of our world in an action-packed manner and also in a graphically astonishing way. Its various possibilities of character creation allow for a unique playthrough and replayablity.
The Ascent is for the most part a polished experience that's tons of fun to play and behold. The narrative will carry you along to many interesting places with different baddies to fry, though a few encounters feature enemies that are pure bullet sponges. You will need to pick the right equipment and keep up with leveling, but these issues can be overcome. Hardware requirements shouldn't hold you back too much, and glitches are few and far between. The overall quality makes this one a must play for cyberpunk and isometric shooter fans.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 366 User Ratings
7.6
69% Positive
254 Ratings
254 Ratings
15% Mixed
54 Ratings
54 Ratings
16% Negative
58 Ratings
58 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 366 User Ratings
7.6
69% Positive
254 Ratings
254 Ratings
15% Mixed
54 Ratings
54 Ratings
16% Negative
58 Ratings
58 Ratings
Just phenomonal.
Great world building.
Very satisfying combat.
Amazing, immersive graphics. This was ten times more fun than cyberpunk. And the voice acting was great too.
Don't understand why this isn't getting better reviews.
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PC
Beautiful to fall for, fun and nervous, The Ascent is a generous twin stick shooter, which evolves in a coherent world with neat lore. If the optimization of the game as the ergonomics of the navigation or the interface remain to be reviewed and can sometimes be frustrating, the whole is sufficiently solid on its shoot part as an RPG to occupy you for long hours, solo or with friends . A great way to get back on track for the small team of Neon Giant, whose game is available as soon as it is released on the Game Pass.
Despite its stylishly designed atmosphere and graphics, The Ascent can distract the player with numerous optimization problems.
The Ascent is by far the most beautiful top-down shooter we have ever played. Fun combat and a glorious world make the experience worthwhile, even though the story, RPG elements and co-op modes leave a lot to be desired.
That becomes a bigger problem late in the game, where it resorts to the cheapest method of raising the difficulty by simply throwing high-level enemies at you in increasing numbers. In one battle, you're tasked with holding a position for a given amount of time, before being told that isn't enough; you must now finish off all the remaining enemies. At which point it has become clear that no matter how effective the synergy of our augs, mods and weapons may be, our survival hinges upon us grinding side-quests to raise our level. What a shame The Ascent should make the final steps of its climb so arduous - even if there is evidence here that its maker could yet go all the way to the top. [Issue#362, p.110]
Dashing from cover to cover while peppering enemies with bullets and lasers as you wait on cooldowns to reset is a truly exhilarating and tense moment The Ascent offers time and time again. Those moments are memorable and are unfortunately far less common than The Ascent’s pitfalls. I’m right near the end of the game’s main story after crossing off plenty of side missions, but with the charm of The Ascent’s firefights and scenery long since expired, there’s nothing much left to inspire confidence in what remains.
What a fresh breath of (toxic) air. I've been playing this game for the past few weeks and I'm really very impressed with The Ascent.
The artwork is so friggin' detailed, inspired and believable it's uncanny. I just love it to bits and I think the people responsible for the world design should win a few prizes. It's simply ART with a capital A in my book and they must have invested an incredible amount of passion, time and effort into it. The writing and characters really complement that art-style and I love the overall idea behind the setting.
Game play grows on you quickly too, and though quite simple, it is highly compelling and more engaging than the average hack-and-slash action rpg. Another thing this game does well is the pacing of its rpg elements like loot and upgrades: valuable upgrades at the right intervals, appealing chests to hunt down, interesting abilities to unlock, cool guns, etc. Not much filler stuff here and you won't be overburdened either.
The game doesn't hold your hand much, it can be quite challenging here and there and at times explains very little. Eventually things work out though, doors get unlocked, locked out chests become available and the high level enemies that one-shotted you earlier, will be destroyed.
Only downsides so far: the map can be confusing at times and I encountered a bug where a door in the Morgue wouldn't open for me for some time but I think they fixed that with an upgrade.
Performance is excellent I think. I'm playing this at 1440p on my old GTX970 and I have most of the settings (that are available to my set-up) maxed out, except for shadow quality as I saw a yt vid on that being the biggest resource hog.
Conclusion: If you like action rpgs and if you like an inspired cyberpunk setting it's simply a must buy. For around 20 bucks on Steam this really is kind of a steal. I'm really looking forward to see what these people will be working on next.
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PC
The Ascent brings one of the best depictions of a futuristic cyberpunk environment with an interesting take on class structure and looting. The world design is certainly the highlight of this game, often drawing you into how impressive some of the areas can be with tons of detail.
Gameplay is solid enough with fairly good pacing. Playing alone kinda ****, solely because the majority of the challenge in the game is a steady diet of positioning, clustering enemies and periodic cover shooting - which is a hit/miss mechanic in the game. Playing MP is where the game shines as the sheer chaos multiple players brings makes for a bombastic blast that pales in comparison to the SP experience - in my opinion.
So is the game good? I'd say yes, it certainly is - given the genre and style. However there are quite a few aspects I wish were done differently. There are often stretches where you are seeking your next point of reasonable progression, given while the world is open - traversal is time consuming. Also each encounter, can feel very similar to the last one? Some variations of enemies give a little spice, but more or less each encounter will feel very honed in, which can be a good thing for some. For myself, it was what made me eventually tire of the game. But I certainly enjoyed what I did play and am sure many others will continue to do so.
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PC
First it was way too easy so i had to set hard difficulty, until it became ridiculously hard even on normal. Game is really beautiful, too bad **** balance made me drop it.
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PC
For me The Ascent became a controversial game. It contains BAD plot, grind system, boring characters, but at the same time interesting cyberpunk setting, interesting and not typical gameplay, amazing aesthetics.
I won't lie, for me this game didn't gift nice emotions and i won't comeback for this one, but it has it's own pluses. Summing up the pros and cons i would give it 5/10. Average game, but sadly, not more.
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PC
Summary You belong to the corporation. Can you survive without it? The Ascent is a solo and co-op action RPG set in a cyberpunk world. The mega corporation that owns you and everyone, The Ascent Group, has just collapsed. Confusion and chaos ensue, security and order are in disarray, and without protection, everyone is left to fend for themselve...
Platforms:
- Xbox Series X
- PC
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 5
- PlayStation 4
Initial Release Date: Jul 29, 2021
Developer:
- Neon Giant
Publisher: Curve Digital
Genres:
