Sword of the Stars: The Pit

 PC
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 97 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 64 out of 97
  2. Mixed: 20 out of 97
  3. Negative: 13 out of 97

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  1. suneater
    Jun 23, 2013
    2
    Shallow, repetitive, rogue-like in space with overly strong randomization. There's too many enemies and not enough armor, weapons, or ammo to deal with them all. If you somehow manage to get to lower floors, there's also the problem of disease (snowballing DoT and stat debuff that is extremely hard to remove), starvation, and enemies that level up faster than your weapons. It is notShallow, repetitive, rogue-like in space with overly strong randomization. There's too many enemies and not enough armor, weapons, or ammo to deal with them all. If you somehow manage to get to lower floors, there's also the problem of disease (snowballing DoT and stat debuff that is extremely hard to remove), starvation, and enemies that level up faster than your weapons. It is not uncommon to reach floor 10 and find no new weapons, or even worse, find weapons but no ammo for them (or visa versa).

    All of the randomization is too strong, stat and skill systems are shallow, combat is tedious and repetitive, and the overall difficulty is unrealistic. Be prepared to die to lockers setting off alarms, ammo boxes exploding, and randomized traps randomly disintegrating your main weapon. There are better rogue-likes available (most of them free), better sci-fi games, and better $10 games on Steam.    … Expand
  2. Tulk
    Jul 30, 2013
    1
    Way too random to be good. One game, you could have all the weapons and no ammo. The other game you could have all the ammo, but no weapons. Crafting system is horrible and requires you to chug around soo many random parts that inventory management becomes a chore. Ending is a serious let-down. Quite fun at first, but it gets utterly boring really, really quick. This is one to avoid.
  3. Changetomorrow
    Sep 8, 2013
    4
    This SOTS:The Pit should simply be called SLOTS: The Pit, because that's what it basically is, a overblown slot machine.

    It's a luck based game under the guise of a skill based dungeon crawl. Unless you're happy with just playing the lower difficulties, you'll realize that even if you pay an absolute perfect game, you basically can't win unless you are LUCKY. Add this to the fact    This SOTS:The Pit should simply be called SLOTS: The Pit, because that's what it basically is, a overblown slot machine.

    It's a luck based game under the guise of a skill based dungeon crawl. Unless you're happy with just playing the lower difficulties, you'll realize that even if you pay an absolute perfect game, you basically can't win unless you are LUCKY.

    Add this to the fact that the game takes DAYS AND DAYS to complete and that you can still be instakilled on the later levels, makes this a terrible game to invest your time into. Could you imagine playing a Civilization (or some 4x game) for days on end and then near the end of the game, you make one "error" and that destroys your game? That's exactly what it's like in SLOTS: The Pit.

    Those defending this game, will likely say things like: "Well, that's a rogue-like for you or that's what RNG games are all about". What they fail to realize is that there's a fine line between a skill based rogue-like and a game of chance. FTL, is an example of how a skill based game with random elements should be done. Even if you had a less than lucky start, in FTL, it never felt like you were helpless or completely at the whims of random number generation. You still had options, tools and tricks at your disposal and you could still make the best of it. Not so in SLOTS: The Pit, where your knowledge of the game and experience can only take you so far and which can insta-kill you throughout the entire game. And while FTL's games could last 2-3 hours, SLOTS: The Pit can't be completed unless you dedicate *DAYS* to it, which is quite silly.

    Overall, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone unless they're into playing slot machines or blackjack. These luck elements are sooo much a part of the game that even if you are lucky and win the game, you realize just how shallow your victory is.    … Expand
  4. augh18
    Sep 29, 2014
    0
    The opinion in this review was based on the following content:

    Sword of the Stars: The Pit Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Mind Games DLC Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Gold Edition DLC Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Pilgrim DLC Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Juggernaut DLC Game is a very uninspired roguelike that takes place in a cookie-cutter sci-fi setting. The environments are    The opinion in this review was based on the following content:

    Sword of the Stars: The Pit
    Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Mind Games DLC
    Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Gold Edition DLC
    Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Pilgrim DLC
    Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Juggernaut DLC

    Game is a very uninspired roguelike that takes place in a cookie-cutter sci-fi setting. The environments are dull. The enemies are boring. The combat is glacial in pace. The music doesn't change tracks often enough, and what is there is essentially a half-assed attempt at cloning the outstanding soundtrack to "Blade Runner".

    The game is way too long for how random the chance of success is. Like most roguelikes, by the time you start the game has already decided whether success in that run is possible or not, but you're playing to find out what your dice roll was. If you have a good run on Normal mode, the game will take 20 - 25 hours to complete. It's possible to get 15 hours deep in a run, lose due to RNG (because that's roguelikes), and have to start all over. That's hugely disrespectful of the player's time.

    The XP and Item banking systems are a neat feature to try and fix thsi problem, but they're tedious and immensely timeconsuming to fully utilize themselves, and not fun in the least. You essentially end up having to choose between two ways to approach your run:

    1. You are doing this run to try and make it to the finish.

    2. You dedicate the run to grinding out XP and items so that you can bank them, kill yourself, then start over with a new character on that floor and use all the banked XP/items to create a character that's a far higher level with better equipment than he would possibly be if you had arrived at that floor from a fresh playthrough. This option is way too metagamey, and isn't enjoyable in any way.

    The highlight of the Mind-Games addon are the psionic powers, and they are incredibly boring.

    There should be the ability to create your own character, but instead you are forced to choose from pre-mades, which I can only assume was done so that if you wanted more variety in starting setups you'd feel inclined to purchase the character DLC (which I don't suggest anyone does). The way the new X-Com games do multiplayer (point system, each skill/stat/equipment purchased drains from the point system) is how a custom character loadout system could work in "The Pit". The exclusion is utter bullocks.

    Crafting is tedious and dull. There are far too many items in this game compared to how many recipes there are, so you end up filling your inventory with a bunch of crafting items that may very well end up having no synergy within your run, and then dying before you can ever craft something useful.

    This is a very bad game that nobody should bother playing.    … Expand
  5. hellznrg
    May 26, 2014
    4
    Seems like it would be a good game, but it's just too hard to be enjoyable. No weapons, not enough ammo, weapons constantly degrading. If i wanted a chore I'd do the laundry.
  6. AWG
    Aug 9, 2013
    4
    One word: YAWN (I know that's not really a word, but I can't describe this game in any other way).

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. RPG Fan
    Apr 10, 2019
    81
    Whether played with DLC or not, The Pit is one of the more solid roguelike titles on Steam, especially in a relatively flooded market. It is challenging but generally fair and allows the player a lot of choices in character development while providing a good atmosphere for dungeon delving. While its graphics and sound may not impress, The Pit's gameplay will keep players unafraid of long streaks of failure and ensure they come back to challenge it "just one more time."
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  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Sep 19, 2013
    60
    An interesting choice if you long for a proper challenge, and you don't mind there's no feast to your eyes. However, if rogue genre says nothing to you, take a different road. [Issue#232]
  3. PC Gamer
    Apr 24, 2013
    73
    While its RPG aspirations may be overshadowed by your need to constantly source the basics like ammo and health, The Pit--with its random elements and permadeath--is justified in its boast of replayability, even if it is only out of necessity. [May 2013, p.61]
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