Note: Havent beaten the game yet at all. this is an overview.

I could describe this game as something like the first shadow warrior reboot (Singleplayer Arena FPS)+ something like Devil May Cry (Character action). The first because you go from room to room shooting enemies and dodging them through a dash move (shift) and circlestrafing. The second because of a focus on varying up attacks to score and rank higher in the leaderboards.

It's nothing like the original doom which is full of corridors and hitscan enemies causing you to need to use your enviorment as cover and full of exploration and secrets to uncover. More like the Doom Reboot, you'll be going from wide open arena to wide open arena truly dodging enemies with just melee and projectile attacks, with weapons that are also only projectiles. You'll need situational awareness and prediction skills to not suddenly get caught off guard by the various enemy types off screen. A big difference is that there's much more of a focus on enviormental kills compared to any other fps I've played.

I compare this to the hack and slash game Devil May Cry because it applies the ''stylish'' ranking system to First Person Shooters. Both games aren't just about not dying, but also playing as ''stylishly'' as possible to get better scores. Like DMC's Style Meter, Desync features an ''ATK'' meter at the bottom left which goes up as you vary up your attacks, then slowly depletes, and if one gets hit all of it depletes immediately. On top of that you can see a ''kill'' ''overkill'' and ''atk'' meter at the top right divided in 4 bars which fill if you do said things. If each is reached it gives you more score. It depletes in a similar manner to the atk bar but doesn't deplete upon a hit and isn't about varying up attacks. Ofcourse, at the end the game has a detailed ranking board for various things similar to DMC. The big difference is that you also get a score to compete with in leaderboards, encouraging the replaying of levels.

While in DMC it's all about creating your own combos, in this game a bunch of different types of methods and sequences of attacking and killing are already set by the game as ''attack sequences'', and when one is accidentally done it will show up in a list in their ''codec'', which you can see upon pressing C. Doing them will give you a speed and damage boost as an encouragement in game, and more score as an encouragement for that. This is the main mechanic of the game. The ones that give the least points just have one action like killing an enemy from below. The ones with more points are things like ''Switcher'' which go Stagger Enemy > Switch Weapon > Kill Enemy. The name ''Desync'' comes from a mechanic tied to this.

Some enemies have ''syncs'' which are buffs indicated by the enemy glowing a certain color, such as red for strength. You can then decide what attack sequence will be able to let you ''desync'' (debuff) the enemy, which again gives more points.

Another stand out mechanic is reloading and ammo. While old school fps had you scavenging the maze like maps for more ammo, that doesn't fit this games action. Arena fps like Serious Sam tend to just straight up give the player a bunch of Ammo prior to a fight or let you find it through secrets, and if you run out you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Desyncs method fits even more with this type of gameplay however. In here, if you kill an enemy with your weapon, it wil temporarily drop ammo for that weapon, and when one presses R right after picking it up, it will immediately fill up that weapon. If you're too late after picking it up however, it won't. You can actually completely run out of ammo for all your weapons and need to respawn. Only the first weapon has ammo that automatically replenishes over time.

What this system does is not kill the flow through losing or having to find ammo or having to worry about ammo count, yet again encourage you to switch between weapons. It also effects positioning because if you're gonna use said weapon, you'll need to eventually get close to get your ammo back, so you better do it in a way to not lose that weapon.


While there's more weapons, you can only have 4 at a time. Like in Unreal Tournament, These all have an alternate fire. The pistol shoots some straight projectiles in a row, but with the alt fire stagger enemies. You can then stagger the enemy and quickly switch to the projectile shotgun and hit them quicker than would be possible just using the first weapon, again encouraging switching. This shotguns secondary leaves a shuriken not too far from you that spins around in place. you'll need to aim this at the ground in front of enemies feet or let charging enemies walk into it. The third weapon is a rocket launcher with an alternate fire thats more powerful and has a larger explosion. The fourth is similar to the first but fires a lot faster (it's like a plasma riflefrom quake 3 or link gun primary from ut), but has an alternate fire that is a very slow but strong cube projectile. I haven't unlocked the other choices for weapons yet.

There's also two other things in your arsenal. One is a ''core'' buff you build up over time by hitting enemies and can use by pressing F. As you play the game you can unlock more of these and pick between them. The other is an ''off hand weapon'' which spawns in certain places of levels which you can fire with different buttons while having your regular weapons out. The first is a shield that can block and parry, and the second shoots slowing freeze rays. haven't unlocked the others yet.

As you play the game you gain fragments. Using this, you can upgrade your weapons. You can give 3 upgrade slots. In each you can put one of 4 attributes, such as a speed or damage boost. However, every boost you generate comes with one Downside. And ofcourse, there's a few more weapons to unlock as you play the game to pick between, but you always use 4 weapons.

The weapon upgrades, Desyncs, Cores and Off hand weapons can all be tweaked in terminal screens in the corners of the place you start in. The levels themselves are found in an elevator in the middle you can take.

Enemy vareity is wonderful so far. For example, there's an enemy that teleports towards you and then attacks, so you need to dash out of the way right after he disappears. There's floating enemies, enemies that charge towards you and try to do a melee, there's an enemy with a huge sword that tries to deflect your bullets, etc, and when these are matched up with others and put in certain places, they really make trying to dodge an prioritize them engaging.

The arenas are full of hazards like pits, spiked walls, lava dripping from walls, swinging axes, etc which you can use to kill your enemies with, and ofcourse the standard explosive barrels (though they look like floating balls here). The easiest way is to use the shotgun primarys knockback and launche enemies into the hazards. These hazards make one arena stand out from the other, but ofcourse level geometry, enemy placement and combination/count of enemies keeps things fresh.

I'm not sure how many levels there are, but each level does seem to have a ''mutation'' version. The one I played was where you got to dual wield 2 rocket launchers in the same level. It was kinda lame though because it's your only weapon here which sucked out a lot of the depth.

The game is difficult, but unlike what Totalbiscuit and GGGmanlives said, it's not unfair at all. You just have to get good at situational awareness instead of tunnelvisioning yourself. Sure, the first boss a difficulty spike and they couldve given you more time to adjust to the second phase, but it's also not an unfair one.

I really reccomend this game because a lot of fps have been really stale, and this one really tries to switch things up and move the genre forward, instead of rehashing old school fps or regressing the genre through more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ modern military fps.

Note: Havent beaten the game yet at all. this is an overview. I could describe this game as something like the first shadow warrior reboot (Singleplayer Arena FPS)+ something like Devil May Cry (Character action). The first because you go from room to room shooting enemies and dodging them through a dash move (shift) and circlestrafing. The second because of a focus on varying up attacks to score and rank higher in the leaderboards. It's nothing like the original doom which is full of corridors and hitscan enemies causing you to need to use your enviorment as cover and full of exploration and secrets to uncover. More like the Doom Reboot, you'll be going from wide open arena to wide open arena truly dodging enemies with just melee and projectile attacks, with weapons that are also only projectiles. You'll need situational awareness and prediction skills to not suddenly get caught off guard by the various enemy types off screen. A big difference is that there's much more of a focus on enviormental kills compared to any other fps I've played. I compare this to the hack and slash game Devil May Cry because it applies the ''stylish'' ranking system to First Person Shooters. Both games aren't just about not dying, but also playing as ''stylishly'' as possible to get better scores. Like DMC's Style Meter, Desync features an ''ATK'' meter at the bottom left which goes up as you vary up your attacks, then slowly depletes, and if one gets hit all of it depletes immediately. On top of that you can see a ''kill'' ''overkill'' and ''atk'' meter at the top right divided in 4 bars which fill if you do said things. If each is reached it gives you more score. It depletes in a similar manner to the atk bar but doesn't deplete upon a hit and isn't about varying up attacks. Ofcourse, at the end the game has a detailed ranking board for various things similar to DMC. The big difference is that you also get a score to compete with in leaderboards, encouraging the replaying of levels. While in DMC it's all about creating your own combos, in this game a bunch of different types of methods and sequences of attacking and killing are already set by the game as ''attack sequences'', and when one is accidentally done it will show up in a list in their ''codec'', which you can see upon pressing C. Doing them will give you a speed and damage boost as an encouragement in game, and more score as an encouragement for that. This is the main mechanic of the game. The ones that give the least points just have one action like killing an enemy from below. The ones with more points are things like ''Switcher'' which go Stagger Enemy > Switch Weapon > Kill Enemy. The name ''Desync'' comes from a mechanic tied to this. Some enemies have ''syncs'' which are buffs indicated by the enemy glowing a certain color, such as red for strength. You can then decide what attack sequence will be able to let you ''desync'' (debuff) the enemy, which again gives more points. Another stand out mechanic is reloading and ammo. While old school fps had you scavenging the maze like maps for more ammo, that doesn't fit this games action. Arena fps like Serious Sam tend to just straight up give the player a bunch of Ammo prior to a fight or let you find it through secrets, and if you run out you're fucked. Desyncs method fits even more with this type of gameplay however. In here, if you kill an enemy with your weapon, it wil temporarily drop ammo for that weapon, and when one presses R right after picking it up, it will immediately fill up that weapon. If you're too late after picking it up however, it won't. You can actually completely run out of ammo for all your weapons and need to respawn. Only the first weapon has ammo that automatically replenishes over time. What this system does is not kill the flow through losing or having to find ammo or having to worry about ammo count, yet again encourage you to switch between weapons. It also effects positioning because if you're gonna use said weapon, you'll need to eventually get close to get your ammo back, so you better do it in a way to not lose that weapon. While there's more weapons, you can only have 4 at a time. Like in Unreal Tournament, These all have an alternate fire. The pistol shoots some straight projectiles in a row, but with the alt fire stagger enemies. You can then stagger the enemy and quickly switch to the projectile shotgun and hit them quicker than would be possible just using the first weapon, again encouraging switching. This shotguns secondary leaves a shuriken not too far from you that spins around in place. you'll need to aim this at the ground in front of enemies feet or let charging enemies walk into it. The third weapon is a rocket launcher with an alternate fire thats more powerful and has a larger explosion. The fourth is similar to the first but fires a lot faster (it's like a plasma riflefrom quake 3 or link gun primary from ut), but has an alternate fire that is a very slow but strong cube projectile. I haven't unlocked the other choices for weapons yet. There's also two other things in your arsenal. One is a ''core'' buff you build up over time by hitting enemies and can use by pressing F. As you play the game you can unlock more of these and pick between them. The other is an ''off hand weapon'' which spawns in certain places of levels which you can fire with different buttons while having your regular weapons out. The first is a shield that can block and parry, and the second shoots slowing freeze rays. haven't unlocked the others yet. As you play the game you gain fragments. Using this, you can upgrade your weapons. You can give 3 upgrade slots. In each you can put one of 4 attributes, such as a speed or damage boost. However, every boost you generate comes with one Downside. And ofcourse, there's a few more weapons to unlock as you play the game to pick between, but you always use 4 weapons. The weapon upgrades, Desyncs, Cores and Off hand weapons can all be tweaked in terminal screens in the corners of the place you start in. The levels themselves are found in an elevator in the middle you can take. Enemy vareity is wonderful so far. For example, there's an enemy that teleports towards you and then attacks, so you need to dash out of the way right after he disappears. There's floating enemies, enemies that charge towards you and try to do a melee, there's an enemy with a huge sword that tries to deflect your bullets, etc, and when these are matched up with others and put in certain places, they really make trying to dodge an prioritize them engaging. The arenas are full of hazards like pits, spiked walls, lava dripping from walls, swinging axes, etc which you can use to kill your enemies with, and ofcourse the standard explosive barrels (though they look like floating balls here). The easiest way is to use the shotgun primarys knockback and launche enemies into the hazards. These hazards make one arena stand out from the other, but ofcourse level geometry, enemy placement and combination/count of enemies keeps things fresh. I'm not sure how many levels there are, but each level does seem to have a ''mutation'' version. The one I played was where you got to dual wield 2 rocket launchers in the same level. It was kinda lame though because it's your only weapon here which sucked out a lot of the depth. The game is difficult, but unlike what Totalbiscuit and GGGmanlives said, it's not unfair at all. You just have to get good at situational awareness instead of tunnelvisioning yourself. Sure, the first boss a difficulty spike and they couldve given you more time to adjust to the second phase, but it's also not an unfair one. I really reccomend this game because a lot of fps have been really stale, and this one really tries to switch things up and move the genre forward, instead of rehashing old school fps or regressing the genre through more shitty modern military fps.