Heat Signature

 PC
Heat Signature Image
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 33 Ratings

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  • Summary: Heat Signature is a game about randomised space ships that you can sneak aboard. These ships have a randomly generated interior of connected rooms and corridors, and crew that patrol those rooms.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. PC Gamer
    Sep 21, 2017
    85
    By making excellent use of its procedurally generated world and wacky gadgets, Heat Signature is a mission worth taking.
  2. Game Informer
    Sep 27, 2017
    85
    Heat Signature’s strength lies in its ability to make you think fast when you have all the time in the world.
  3. IGN
    Sep 21, 2017
    80
    With a set of thieving and assassination tools that beg to be used creatively, Heat Signature’s puzzle-like missions are great for jumping into for a few goes at a time to try something just crazy enough to work. That’s when the fun stuff happens.
  4. Vandal
    Oct 21, 2017
    80
    This is one of the best "space bounty hunter simulators" we've played in a while. A very interesting title we recommend particularly if you like 2D.
  5. Polygon
    Sep 22, 2017
    75
    Heat Signature is one of the tightest indie action games I've played, packing a maximum amount of excitement into a minimum amount of time and space. My first few hours with the game were genuinely wonderful, filled with rapid-fire moments of delight and triumph. But when I hit my personal skill ceiling, I could do no more than repeatedly bang my head against it. I respect Heat Signature. I admire its success in accomplishing with such skill what it set out to do, and if it had been more forgiving, it wouldn’t be as tense. Heat Signature’s laser focus on in-depth mechanical play with high consequence is at once what made it satisfying for me to play and what made it easy to put down and walk away from when I hit the limits of my tactical creativity.
  6. PCGamesN
    Sep 22, 2017
    70
    Unfortunately, Heat Signature’s structure lets it down somewhat. It becomes a repetitive grind, broken up by the occasional amazing moment. The procedural generation makes it feel special, randomly creating an environment for these unique anecdotes, but it is a double-edged sword as there are a multitude of uneventful missions in-between. Still, it all feels worth it for those moments when there are a few seconds left on the clock and you are forced to take desperate action.
  7. USgamer
    Sep 25, 2017
    70
    What you're left with is a game that many players will get around 10-15 hours out of before being shut out behind a vicious skill wall. Until that point, every player will run into some amazing moments that beg to be shared with friends. Heat Signature is a machine for watercooler talk. And if you're up to the challenge, there's a mountain waiting to be surpassed here. I just wish there were a few tweaks that would allow Heat Signature's fun to continue on for everyone, not just the highest skilled folks among us.

See all 9 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 7
  3. Negative: 1 out of 7
  1. KaiMerry
    Oct 13, 2017
    10
    Heat Signature is about controlling space mercenaries whose job it is to break into procedurally generated enemy spaceships and get themselvesHeat Signature is about controlling space mercenaries whose job it is to break into procedurally generated enemy spaceships and get themselves into terrible situations which require a clever way out.

    As a space mercenary, you have very little backstory or information available, just a random name and a personal mission, which involves breaking into a spaceship. You receive these missions from the only character who won't end up dead, because they're the tutorial character. These personal missions of breaking into spaceships require you to first, take on lots of other missions which involve breaking into spaceships.

    So, you grab a character and off you go, in your tiny pod of a spaceship which has no guns, just the ability to be so small that the enemy doesn't notice when you've docked onto them. The flying through space is controlled with the mouse, and is really fun to get good at, you'll start by crashing into the side of the enemy and hoping to dock, only to ping off the side, but the more you play, the quicker and easier you'll find it to dock. Of course, if you fly too close to the windows they're going to shoot you, and you will go spiralling through space to your death, or survival, depending on how you are with quick time events in which you can pause, so often you just need to make it back to base to repair your pod. Once you haven't been blown up by the enemy and have successfully docked, the space raiding begins.

    Before walking through the airlock just for the enemy to hit you with a wrench and throw you back out again, you can look over the whole ship, no fog of war, you can see where everyone and everything is, but that doesn't mean you won't be spotted by a patrolling enemy the second you step through the airlock because you weren't paying attention. Once you've snuck on it's time to head for the objective, either kill or collect, whether it's an item, a person, or the ship itself. Of course, you'll want weapons, and by taking out enemies and going through boxes you can gather yourself a hefty arsenal. There isn't just guns and wrenches, there is a manner of interesting and useful gadgets, such as swappers which swap you with an enemy, so they shoot themselves, and subverts which hijack enemy technology so it works for you. These shields and cloaking and so many more are there to help you out of the sticky situations, you may accidentally throw the enemy with the key to progress out of a window, but by using a swapper you can swap with someone on the other side of the door. You could use a visitor to teleport into a room of six people, take two out with a shotgun, shoot another with your other gun, throw your short sword at one whilst you dive at another with your longsword, and be teleported back to your original position before the last one shoots you.

    Pausing is the most powerful weapon you have, it allows you to perform these awesome stunts which are always the most rewarding part of any mission. Once you've completed the mission it's probably time to leave, you could run back to your pod, fly the enemy ship and blow others up with it on the way back or smash through a window and remote control your pod to pick you up before you run out of air. If shot or knocked out, the enemies will throw you out of the airlock, which means you have to frantically fly your pod to pick you up whilst the counter ticks down to your inevitable death, which may be today, maybe tomorrow.

    Once your back at a base, you can buy new items, train, do defector missions which you unlock with each space station you take controller of by levelling up through missions, or retire your character and select a new one. Although your character has little story, you still feel bad when they're retired or die, mainly because you lose all the gadgets they’ve collected over their past missions, and the progress on the personal mission, it can be devastating when you finally kick the bucket on the mission which would have unlocked their personal mission. But characters are replaceable, and the different difficulties of mission allow you to start gearing up before having to face the harder missions again. Through the game you unlock more ways of doing missions, like bloodless or no witnesses, these missions will still pay you if you don’t complete them within the perimeters, just they’ll pay you less. This means you don’t feel totally defeated when you wonder on a ship in a bloodless mission and forgot to bring anything non-lethal.

    This game encourages risking near impossible feats, encourages creative ways of completing your mission and is fun to play for a few minutes to a few hours, with great re playability. Although the missions are all a variation of the same thing, there is uniqueness in the procedural generation and defector missions, one of which starts you in space, making you use a gun to propel yourself through space.    … Expand
  2. Cronstintein
    Sep 25, 2017
    9
    It's a great pickup and play type game for an hour or two but I wouldn't want to try and go through an entire campaign in one extendedIt's a great pickup and play type game for an hour or two but I wouldn't want to try and go through an entire campaign in one extended sitting. Doing one or two characters' journey is just about a perfect play session.

    The difficulty is managed very cleverly through mission selection. Once you're familiar with the mechanics, you can start pushing hard missions right out the gate.

    The loot is the most interesting aspect. Lots of item variation. This is best expressed when you're under a tight time limit and you need to stretch your abilities to their maximum. Chain teleporting, grabbing keys, bouncing out and killing the captain while leaving rooms full of guards befuddled feels amazing. Concussion hammer + slipstream = a good time.

    I could see this being an FTL-like situation where I keep coming back to it for years to come. The basic gameplay feels that good.    … Expand
  4. nonameforme
    Mar 22, 2018
    9
    A fusion of Hotline Miami & Superhot & some a bit of Hitman seasoning.
    If the trailer that show player character dash slash into a room full    A fusion of Hotline Miami & Superhot & some a bit of Hitman seasoning.
    If the trailer that show player character dash slash into a room full of bodyguard, then pickup that 1st dead bodyguard gun to shoot another guard, then throw grenade to airlock, then teleport out and shoot that grenade didn't sell you the game, then maybe it's not for you.    … Expand
  5. PokemonStyle
    Nov 15, 2017
    8
    Amazing rogue-like gameplay which generates a big amount of funny and epic moments. A great number of ways to complete every single level.Amazing rogue-like gameplay which generates a big amount of funny and epic moments. A great number of ways to complete every single level. Despite of fact that game becomes very repetitive after a while, it still one of the best indie games of 2017.… Expand
  6. Vectis99
    Oct 18, 2018
    7
    A fun, fast paced and casual stealth game which is unique in the wide variety of opportunities provided for the player to take a creativeA fun, fast paced and casual stealth game which is unique in the wide variety of opportunities provided for the player to take a creative approach to problem solving. The learning curve of the game can take some time, punishing players who remain in easier mission comfort zones and restricting their access to some of the more intricate parts of the game. After getting a feel for what the significance of each "assignment" means, the game starts to pick up and it becomes more engaging to search for more creative solutions to problems.
    The game was considerably improved by its October update, patching up a lot of the more menial parts of the game to increase the variety by a lot, dramatically improving the games possibilities and long term appeal.    … Expand
  7. denwer
    Jan 29, 2018
    5
    I am a great fan of his Gunpoint game, I played it through about 4 times and many custom levels in steam and don't regret any hour that II am a great fan of his Gunpoint game, I played it through about 4 times and many custom levels in steam and don't regret any hour that I spent in Gunpoint, because it was a really great game, in my opinion.

    In the steam promo video, this game is called "Gunpoint in space", it is sometimes true, but not always. You could beat the whole Gunpoint game easily in 3-4 hours, like in 1 seat, and it was a quite enjoyable experience. I often failed the level, but it does not irritate me at all. And here it seems you need at least 25-30 hours to beat this game, and they not very enjoyable, in my opinion.

    In "Heat Signature" situation is different, it has very nice graphics and not bad gameplay, it also has different types of mission, sometimes you should be quite like at Gunpoint, but sometimes you should not, so you can play it like light version "Hotline Miami" in space. Everything seems to be OK, but not for a long time, I've already played for about 10 hours (about 8 seats, each one slightly more than 1 hour ) during past month.
    At first, it was fun, almost like Gunpoint, but after 6-8 hours it became quite boring and repetitive. There are only 3 types of missions: kill, steal and capture. I played about 30 missions and all ships look quite the same, like 3-4 templates. It is not an easy game, you can be killed or lost your character quite easily, especially on Hard and Atrocious missions and you will lose all your hard-earned stuff. So the absence of saves is quite frustrating for me. During first 3-4 hours I was quite calm about my failures and death in this game, but later it becomes to irritate me, so I can't enjoy this game as much as I want.
    Also, I don't like Hard missions with a time limit: for example, you have just 90-120 seconds to get to the ship(very huge of course) and your target as it should be in the farthest corner of the ship. So you need to be PERFECT in timing and have the very good equipment to success at these missions.

    I admit, that I am not hardcore kind of gamer, I don't mind challenges in the game as soon as they don't prevent you to get fun from the game. I really wanted to enjoy this game, sure it has a lot of content (not very unique to be honest), but for me, it is quite repetitive, boring, with no savegames and sometimes very hard. I enjoyed mostly first 6-7 hours, but then its repetitiveness and difficulty (because if you will concentrate on Easy and Medium missions you will spend 2-3 times more time in the game because you need money to go further and only Hard and Atrocious missions paid well) kill all the fun and enjoyability in this game.

    If you, not a very Hardcore gamer or like its repetitive gameplay (30-60 minutes it is quite enough to get the full impression of this game), I cannot recommend this game. And I quit this game, because it is not fun for me anymore.    … Expand
  8. Schmubbel
    Sep 2, 2020
    0
    No, somehow it's not that great.

    I was expecting more opportunities to interact in the spaceships ... sabotage something, hack something,    No, somehow it's not that great.

    I was expecting more opportunities to interact in the spaceships ... sabotage something, hack something, turn off shields, etc. None of them exist. Ok, drives can be destroyed. Well ... otherwise just kill or kidnap. You run around and kill everything. Short entertaining, but then quickly becomes dull.

    The thing around to be able to dock on a ship really just annoys me.

    Then this confusing and just stupid fiddling with the inventory ... nah.

    The idea of ​​always playing with other characters is ok, but always starting from scratch is not fun for me either. If you only play with one character it quickly gets boring, even in the game itself you will find this hint ... Oh yeah ... if it is only lame later you should start all over again so that you have fun again !? Really?? Serious???

    Everything is not bad. I like the graphic style. Infiltrating ships and then taking out the crew is also fun. For a short lap. Maybe two. Three .... NO. You can play this Game, but you don't have to.
    And that all makes it just too expensive.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

91
#91 Best PC Game of 2017

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