I decided to finally spend some timet with my PlayStation 5 again this morning. It's been a while since I powered it up so it was about time. The last game I played on it was Death Stranding which I didn't finish and didn't really feel like picking up again either. So, I needed a new game and while browsing the PS+ Game Catalogue I stumbled upon Dysmantle that I remember @daltono was praising a few weeks back. I decided to give it a go.
What is Dysmantle?
Dysmantle is a post-apocalyptic ARPG where you run around breaking stuff. That's mostly what it is about. Breaking stuff to scavenge it for resources to craft and upgrade gear to be able to break and scavenge even more things. Never has a game had a more fitting name than this one.
There is however somewhat of a story to the game. You're not told a story but you can pick up clues as to what's happened to the world as you go. There's also a main quest to follow that takes you through most of what you need to know. I've played for a few hours now and honestly I have no clue what's going on in the world. All I know is that I have to break stuff and destroy everything. The developers should have partnered with Limp Bizkit and HateBreed for this game.
There is some combat as well but it's rather lackluster and it's clear that it's not what the game is meant to be about. You mostly just swing your crowbar at enemies by pressing one button and if you hold the button you can do a power attack. You can also roll to avoid enemy attacks which adds a bit of a souls-like feel to the game, alongside the fact that you spawn back at the last campfire you visited when you die and have to run back to your corpse to pick up all your resources again.
Why settle for tediousness?
Dysmantle is by no means a perfect game. There is a bit of tediousness involved especially with the inventory system. Luckily there isn't any dragging and dropping and organising the inventory by ourselves as I would have hated to do that with a controller. The inventory does however fill up real quick which means you have to leg it back to the campfire all the time to unload. I feel like 30% of the time I've spent playing so far has been running to and from the campfire.
Luckily these campfires are never far off. I don't think it's ever taken me more than 30 seconds to reach the closest campfire but it adds up real quick. It feels like a unnecessary system that artificially extends the game. If I was playing this on PC I would definitely find some way to mod the inventory into being unlimited.
I do also wish there was a little bit more to the whole system of dismantling items. All you have to do is run up to the thing you want to destroy and then hold the square button. Some items take one swing to destroy while some take several. Luckily the game is good looking and rather chill to play so that kind of evens out the bad parts of it.
Upgrades galore
One thing I do love in games are upgrades and Dysmantle has a lot of them. You can craft and research a bunch of new stuff and almost all of it can be upgraded. All of the materials that you scavenge are helpful in one way or another and can be used to upgrade the abundance of gear and items that you can craft. I feel like I'm getting a new item or upgrade at fairly regular intervals which gives a satisfying sense of progressions.
You also get to choose between three perks whenever you level up. Leveling up also feels rather forgiving seeing as you get experience from basically everything. Every little thing that you dismantle gives you experience as well as killing enemies, dropping items off at the campfire or completing quests. So far I've just been picking anything that increases my inventory and gives me increased amounts of experience as long as those choices are present. If they're not I pick whatever sounds like it will increase my efficiency the most.
All in all Dysmantle is a pretty solid experience even though it has a few tedious sides to it. The great atmosphere and relaxing gameplay heavily outweighs the negative sides. This is yet another game that I would have never tried if it wasn't for the PS+ subscription. It's continuing to bring a lot of value to this hobby of mine.
If you ever see this on a sale or get the chance to play it I would highly recommend doing so.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.