Sublevel Zero Redux isn’t a shooter for everyone. It’s intense and demanding, and that simply isn’t something some people will want inside their VR headsets. For fans of Descent and the emergent rougelike genre, though, this is something of a treat. Polished, tight gameplay gives this unique brand of action an engaging edge. 6DOF is enjoying a small resurgence right now and, if that’s something that interests you and you’d love to try the genre in VR, Sublevel Zero Redux is your best bet.

For now, Sublevel Zero is a game that has at once reminded me how much I love space combat, whilst at the same time introduced me to a whole new, old genre of game. Though story and presentation are a little rough, the gameplay and core mechanics are such that I’ll keep coming back over and over again.

Inching closer to demise in Sublevel is a tightening vice that’ll persist past every destroyed core and through every wormhole.

Sublevel Zero is fantastic, it’s hard enough that you want to keep pushing yourself, although after a while it can get frustrating and a bit repetitive but it’s a game you can keep going back to, it’s cheap and hardly takes up any hard drive space, which is a bonus.

It is an expertly crafted 6DOF game with tight controls, but the rogue parts of its cross genre appeal are rough enough around the edges to be problematic.

Sublevel Zero's novelty is how faithfully it resurrects concepts of a fallen genre. It's cool that Sigtrap Games made a game like Descent, but pressing those ideas inside the mold of a roguelike leaves a significant amount of empty space.

Fans of Descent from way back when should have a pretty good idea of what to expect here, as it is very much a modern take on the genre - to the point where it could be argued as a spiritual successor. It plays well and does its job, but it's also a thin package that doesn't offer a great deal of substance beyond the endless loot grind.