The Ascent

 Xbox Series X
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 453 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 346 out of 453
  2. Mixed: 40 out of 453
  3. Negative: 67 out of 453
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  1. Bokugakirada
    Aug 2, 2021
    6
    Looks beautiful, but performance issues and enemies not scaling to player made this a bit of a slog to finish. Think the devs did a good job though, and will be interested in what they do next
  2. umaumai
    Jul 30, 2021
    7
    This is a very deep twin stick style shooter with some of the most intriguing visuals surrounding a rich environment that is set to a dystopian cyberpunk future. The problem for me is there is almost too much happening on screen when you are in the over world. This can make exploring more of a chore than a delight. The voice acting is great and there is a lot of dialogue and text to combThis is a very deep twin stick style shooter with some of the most intriguing visuals surrounding a rich environment that is set to a dystopian cyberpunk future. The problem for me is there is almost too much happening on screen when you are in the over world. This can make exploring more of a chore than a delight. The voice acting is great and there is a lot of dialogue and text to comb through to get the most out of what you're involved in. There are RPG elements as you level up here as well. Augments and weapon upgrading are just a few of the standard fare that most of you who are used to the genre will be familiar with, but I felt like there was too much to keep track of initially without a lot of explanation from the game itself on how to utilize those systems. There are instruction cards that pop up when a new feature or ability becomes available to you, but there isn't aways an immediate tutorial as too managing or using them. That's not a dealbreaker for me as learning and developing my own style of play is fun, but for some it might become overwhelming. I haven't finished the story, but what I've experienced so far was fantastic. On the flip side of that I can see that the multiplayer co-op is one area that this game can shine. I see a lot of late night sessions rocking this with friends in my future. The one big drawback for me is the isometric gameplay. I'm perfect fine with concept in general, but after having other games utilize a rotating isometric view it's hard for me to get completely behind a static version. I understand that with the amount things that they have going on at one time visually on screen it would have made development for a rotating feature very difficult, but it would have been nice if some of the action sections could have been seen from different views. The use of static here is mostly well executed, but I have experienced a few hiccups, minor bugs, that have kept me from finding somethings that enemies drop after combat. Again, that's not a dealbreaker for me just a very minor annoyance. Over all if you have "Game Pass" all I can say is why are you reading this and not downloading the game right now? For everyone else if you like the idea of an RPG driven twin stick shooter I'd give this a look.… Expand
  3. ALEXX84290
    Aug 1, 2021
    7
    El juego gráfica y artísticamente es brutal, las mecánicas están bien pulidas, me recordó mucho cuando en mi niñez jugaba Contra (un twenstick shooter)
    La historia, si bien no me voló la cabeza es disfrutable, para mí en lo que más peca el juego es en ser repetitivo en algunas secciones y de tener algunos Bugs menores.
    Básicamente mi sentimiento con el juego es que le faltó un poco de    El juego gráfica y artísticamente es brutal, las mecánicas están bien pulidas, me recordó mucho cuando en mi niñez jugaba Contra (un twenstick shooter)
    La historia, si bien no me voló la cabeza es disfrutable, para mí en lo que más peca el juego es en ser repetitivo en algunas secciones y de tener algunos Bugs menores.
    Básicamente mi sentimiento con el juego es que le faltó un poco de cocinarse pero sin duda es una gran opción para jugar    … Expand
  4. FoxStorytelling
    Jul 31, 2021
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Awesome art direction and immersion. Fun gameplay with minimal bugs. Best with a second player, but great regardless.… Expand
  5. Spencersboy
    Aug 24, 2021
    5
    Very simple and easy twin stick shooter disguised as an RPG. No HDR, no Ray tracing, buggy acheivements and poorly implemented coop.
    Once the wow of the graphics wear off, you'll be glad it was on gamepass and you didn't pay for it.
  6. imoviesreview
    Jul 30, 2021
    7
    This game feels like a stopgap. Just something to hold Xbox Series Users till Halo Infinite or any other major release on that system. But it's a decent stopgap that at least has some staying powering. As well as quite a bit of content. It makes good use of the Xbox Series features and is fairly fun. It's worth checking out if you have Game Pass at least.
  7. cottandy
    Oct 4, 2021
    7
    "The Ascent" is an isometric top-down shooter in a cyberpunk setting made by a team of 11 people.
    You are a mercenary in a futuristic world who does whatever job he/she gets. And what you do is kill anything that stands in your way. And if you wish also read dialogs about where you need to do this or about the world you play, which is interesting. But if you don't like reading anything    "The Ascent" is an isometric top-down shooter in a cyberpunk setting made by a team of 11 people.
    You are a mercenary in a futuristic world who does whatever job he/she gets. And what you do is kill anything that stands in your way. And if you wish also read dialogs about where you need to do this or about the world you play, which is interesting. But if you don't like reading anything you can skip this part and just destroy.

    Certainly devs put their soul in "the Ascent". A lot is done great, but some gameplay mechanics just leave a bitter aftertaste.
    So a huge plus for the whole picture, beautiful little details, music, design, etc, but also little nasty holes of negative appear here and there.
    Most of the time game is brilliant and fun to play. There are many pros in little details and huge visible moments. The most important is neat gameplay and nice plot.

    More detailed cons and controversial points:
    Camera - the most important, seems like a little one, but it ruins too much of the hardwork of the devs. It's uncomfortable and uncontrollable at the same time. Lacks a simple possibility to zoom out/in, nothing more. Sometimes you don't even see your enemies, but they see you. It not such a big deal to add a little zoom feature from the devs, which will fix quite a lot.

    Bad navigation. Both mini-map and main map are a confusing when it comes to multilevel system, which is present in the game, but doesn't show enough info about levels on maps.

    Not a con, but a warning. You will die often, which doesn't spoil anything.
    It may be a little hard for beginners on normal difficulty when you face your first enemies with gun.
    You will have to use game mechanics not to die too often and master the game. But from the other side game doesn't punish when you die. You start from the last checkpoint and these are literally everywhere. No matter where you die, you won't lose your progress. It's certainly good if the game crashes. And there is a possibility for it to happen. Hard to say how often, but sometimes it will in the current state of development.    … Expand
  8. tom974
    Dec 31, 2022
    5
    This is my 2022 disappointment of the year. The game has a solid base, oustanding environments, nice gameplay, average scenarios, reasonable variety of loot/weapons/equipments, a classic RPG based character building and coop should be the base on such a game. Well past a few hours, the game is severely bugged : the game may randomly and frequently crash, bugged quests (including the mainThis is my 2022 disappointment of the year. The game has a solid base, oustanding environments, nice gameplay, average scenarios, reasonable variety of loot/weapons/equipments, a classic RPG based character building and coop should be the base on such a game. Well past a few hours, the game is severely bugged : the game may randomly and frequently crash, bugged quests (including the main one, can stop you progression or make you replay a mission you took hours to succeed in), character behavior (shooting in the ground thus not damaging any enemy for example), you cannot speak to the same merchant at the same time with another player because it may block the game and make you restart your session, at least two bugged achievements.. The whole thing totally waste my experience on what could have been a nice game.… Expand
  9. Filmanwalt
    Feb 3, 2022
    6
    11 hours and 675 gamerscore in a beautiful looking cyberpunk action roleplaying game with some gameplay flaws.

    story It's about a corporation "The Ascent Group" that basically controlled everything in a dystopian future and then it came to a collapse, from which factional fights for power and more arose. You yourself are basically a normal person who then struggles through mercenary    11 hours and 675 gamerscore in a beautiful looking cyberpunk action roleplaying game with some gameplay flaws.

    story

    It's about a corporation "The Ascent Group" that basically controlled everything in a dystopian future and then it came to a collapse, from which factional fights for power and more arose. You yourself are basically a normal person who then struggles through mercenary work and tries to find out what happened to the large corporation or which threads are actually being pulled in the background.
    Most of the time I didn't actually understand much because I don't really pay too much attention to the story in this type of game either. But towards the end it clicked and everything was clearer and easier to understand.
    The story isn't particularly spectacular and I personally wasn't really interested in it from the beginning until shortly before the end. A German voice output would also have been nice, even though I have no problem with English at all, but if you only want to be enlightened by the background of the story, then a missing voice output in German makes it more demotivating.

    gameplay

    In a top-down action RPG, this should definitely be the heart and the shining core of the game. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it drove me insane.

    Cyberpunk setting, great and cool weapons, where you can try out a lot and also destructible environment objects. There are abilities and skill points to distribute in order to customize your character's play style. But I had some problems with the character progression in particular: I simply never felt really strong at any point in the game. I didn't notice that I've already completed quest and side quest xyz, distributed experience points and skills and became more and more powerful. On the contrary, I had to lower the difficulty level of the game at times and even had problems on Easy.
    Either I've fundamentally lost my skills here or didn't have or found certain skills and thus spoiled the fun of the game, which definitely comes up when you're in the flow. The opponents, who unfortunately respawn again and again, were sometimes so difficult and the menu jungle of augmentations, skills, abilities was not always transparent for me, I could never really say what exactly brings me something.

    I also found the "cover" gameplay rather obstructive and demotivating, because I don't want to hide in such an action RPG, but rather just shoot away masses of opponents. But there was clearly a lack of the possibility of constantly and reliably regaining life (apparently there is a lifesteal option, I haven't found it) in order to survive longer fights better. Especially when it comes to health objects, the loot for opponents could have been much more generous. Ultimately, I also have different skills, e.g. the life giver, not understood why this but not others, such as e.g. the mech, have such incredibly long cooldowns. I then just played through with the mech and a superhero jump, which worked much better.

    But the weakest thing for me was the map and all the WAY TOO LONG paths and that one is often not simply coordinated to the metro first. The map was sometimes not easy to understand and the metros were far behind quests. Paths that are then completely paved with waves of enemies that have been killed countless times and a character that runs so incredibly slowly. Why don't you get a bike or mech in the course of the game for faster bridging of the whole path? It would have fitted wonderfully and would have been cool on top of that. You should have been a bit careful when driving, because there is already a lot going on in the world!

    Even if there is a lot of nagging in the gameplay, it was still okay overall.

    Graphics/Presentation/Bugs

    The graphics, presentation and atmosphere just blew me away. This looks phenomenal from front to back and is optimally implemented, especially in the cyberpunk setting. The lighting effects, reflections, everything around it in individual sections of the city, the stacking of the city levels on top of each other or the effects in combat were made with a lot of love and a lot of development time was certainly spent here. The world that has been created is really very pretty to look at and you keep getting lost in it and marveling at the splendor of it all. I really have to say, even though this aspect of games isn't the most important thing to me, The Ascent graphics etc. let me go through with the game in some annoyed moments.

    Conclusion

    Long story short: The Ascent does some things right, is impressive for an indie developer and unfortunately weakens in the core area of ​​the gameplay. Nonetheless, a recommended game and not very long either, 6/10 medipacks.    … Expand
  10. Thejodjeremie
    Aug 5, 2021
    7
    I enjoyed the game even though it wasn't perfect. The combat was very frustrating at times and the loot wasn't great. The story, music, and graphics were all awesome.
  11. Karottedraak
    Aug 17, 2021
    6
    Looks great and has a awesome world. But besides that it doesnt have a lot going for it. it is a looter shooter without any interesting loot or way to build your character. its more just a normal isometric shooter. there is also a lot of level problems where the mission tells you the recommended level is lvl13 and than throws level 23 enemies at you, which you can defeat because of theLooks great and has a awesome world. But besides that it doesnt have a lot going for it. it is a looter shooter without any interesting loot or way to build your character. its more just a normal isometric shooter. there is also a lot of level problems where the mission tells you the recommended level is lvl13 and than throws level 23 enemies at you, which you can defeat because of the weird mk (weapon upgrade) system but they feel as bullet sponges. the mk system is just a system where you get components to upgrade your weapon and nothing more. this ended up in being just upgrade two weapons you use and nothing more.

    the devs sure have something great in their hands and if they improve it with the rpg/looter shooter elements in this game than it could go to serious hidden gems.    … Expand
  12. CashMunnie7679
    Aug 9, 2021
    7
    Solid game but I dislike the rpg elements. It would have been better as a pure twin stick shooter.
  13. Tomoncio
    Aug 27, 2021
    7
    The Ascent es un buen juego, pero necesita arreglar muchos bugs que posee: ascensores que no se activan, indicaciones en el mapa erróneas, traducción al castellano parcial, desconexiones espontáneas en multijugador... Por esos bugs el juego no se puede disfrutar al máximo, y es una lástima, ya que es un juego de acción con una buena jugabilidad, una estética cyberpunk genial y donde elThe Ascent es un buen juego, pero necesita arreglar muchos bugs que posee: ascensores que no se activan, indicaciones en el mapa erróneas, traducción al castellano parcial, desconexiones espontáneas en multijugador... Por esos bugs el juego no se puede disfrutar al máximo, y es una lástima, ya que es un juego de acción con una buena jugabilidad, una estética cyberpunk genial y donde el componente multijugador es esencial. Es más, es un juego que se disfruta mucho más en cooperativo que en solitario. Eso sí, la historia en mi opinión es un poco compleja, por lo que es necesario prestar mucha atención si no quieres perderte en los detalles.… Expand
  14. forgedsledge
    Feb 25, 2023
    7
    From Night City to the grimy alien planet of Veles. While both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Ascent are forms of cyberpunk fiction, involving intense gunplay, hacking and upgrading your player character, that's where the similarities end. Veles feels grim and oppressive, built on the backs of slaves, such as yourself, fighting each other for scraps whereas in Night City you feel like you'reFrom Night City to the grimy alien planet of Veles. While both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Ascent are forms of cyberpunk fiction, involving intense gunplay, hacking and upgrading your player character, that's where the similarities end. Veles feels grim and oppressive, built on the backs of slaves, such as yourself, fighting each other for scraps whereas in Night City you feel like you're rising through the hierarchy of the criminal underworld to make a name for yourself. Make no mistake, grim doesn't mean better. Cyberpunk 2077 allows you to tell your own story but the atmosphere of The Ascent is what really sold me.

    I will not pretend, I suck at twin-stick shooters, yet I welcome the challenge. Right from the get-go, you're thrust into this immersive, story-driven world and asked to survive and my lack of skill only amplified the story. Overall, the game feels oddly familiar, like NES games of old with a fresh new coat of paint. While I struggled at first, I started to get the hang of the game and it became far more enjoyable.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

70
#70 Best Xbox Series X Game of 2021
7
#7 Most Discussed Xbox Series X Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
68

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 19 out of 34
  3. Negative: 1 out of 34
  1. CD-Action
    Oct 12, 2021
    85
    Style over substance – I bet Neon Giant has this cyberpunk principle printed above the office entrance. The design of their game is absolutely breathtaking, with huge, vertical, crime-infested cities and masterful use of lights and shadows. Add a pulp-style story and good dialogues (or rather monologues, as the protagonist is silent) immersed deeply in the cyberpunk lore, and you’ve got a pure gem for anyone who enjoys this setting. The shooting mechanics and progression system might be overly simple, but they get the job done and make it easier to catch the game’s flow. [10/2021, p.56]
  2. PlaySense
    Aug 19, 2021
    75
    A visual feast that, along with the great audio design, makes for a very atmospheric experience. It's not perfect, though. Navigation leaves a bit to be desired and some technical shortcomings put a damper on the fun.
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  3. Meristation
    Aug 18, 2021
    75
    The Ascent offers cyberpunk lovers a setting where they can unleash their dreams of steel and neon.
    Read full review
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