Omega Warp Review – Mostly Alpha

Omega Warp by Cian Games

Despite how massive the Metroidvania genre has become in indie games, few titles have tried to directly tackle the style of Metroid itself.

The sense of isolation and exploration lives on in newer titles, but rarely do they also tackle the sense of impending sci-fi doom that the adventures of Samus Aran borrow liberally from movies like Alien. In this respect, new sci-fi Metroidvania Omega Warp is actually kind of admirable for trying.

However, it does also highlight that if you come at the queen, you best not miss.

Omega Mortis

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a massive interstellar freighter has gone dark, and a team of specialists is sent in to investigate. Soon, however, it becomes obvious that something monstrous is at play…

Omega Warp isn’t going to win any points for originality, but plenty of games have done great things with the same plot.

However, here we come to the game’s first major problem: tone. Its setting and atmosphere try to evoke something like Dead Space, but the cartoony art style of the characters and enemies is a jarring contrast that completely undermines the tone. Its writing, while not terrible, does little to help either.

The gameplay, meanwhile, is competent but uninteresting. All the standard Metroidvania tropes you would expect are present: locked doors, backtracking, cumulative upgrades, and simple combat all find a place here. The problem is it does very little to differentiate itself from the myriad other options available right now on Steam. It all works, but it doesn’t end up being compelling.

Alpha Aeon Omega

Ultimately the problem with Omega Warp doesn’t come with any one issue, but more of a death by a thousand cuts. The sound design is generally fine, but the loud, repetitive sound of the main character’s footsteps becomes grating extremely fast.

Similarly, combat doesn’t have anything overly negative to say about it, but it lacks oomph and ultimately feels like going through the motions.

The Verdict

If I’m being negative towards Omega Warp, it’s because there IS the skeleton of something great here. Developer and publisher Cian Games clearly knows the genre and what it entails, and they’re absolutely not incompetent when it comes to development.

If anything, Omega Warp serves as a textbook example of how it’s one thing to understand the formula, but it’s another challenge entirely to make it interesting.

Omega Warp is available via Steam.

Watch the trailer for Omega Warp below:

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