Gigantic X is an upcoming sci-fi dungeon crawler for mobile that you have to see to believe
So purdy
There are loads of fantasy action RPGs on mobile. So many that sometimes it's hard to tell which one's which. Big sword men in shiny armour cutting up goblins and what not. So any time a dungeon crawl comes along that isn't set in the same dungeon we've stomped through a thousand times, it's something worth celebrating. Which is why we've written this preview of Gigantic X.
The first thing you've probably noticed is that the game is set in space. You're playing a rugged marine who has to shoot or smash any alien that comes into your line of sight. It's a core we've seen multiple times before, but the experience that Gigantic X builds around it is really, really interesting.
Hands-on ARPG
For starters, there's none of the hands-off approach we see in a lot of other ARPGs. You're never giving control over to the game - the shots you take, the specials you use, and the places you run to are all up to you, the way it should be. And the violence that explodes out of the set of actions you have is truly a thing to behold.Mostly you're taking down waves of critters - they burst from the ground, fly in and attack, and skitter around. There are fat ones and small ones, robot ones and mutated ones, and enormous boss creatures whose patterns you need to learn if you want to succeed. Different planets have different local fauna, and figuring out how to defend against them is as important as figuring out how to kill them. A floating joystick on the left controls your movement - push the attack button on the right and you'll fire or swing your weapon at the closest foe.
There are three different characters in your squad, and you choose which of them you're going to play as at the start of a mission.
There's your standard grizzle-beard-man, a giant who swings a robo-axe, and a hunter-style class who has specials that build turrets and move her away from enemies. Every character gets the XP if you finish a level though, which means when you need different skills you don't have to grind to get a new character up to scratch.
After a few tutorial levels you open up a whole swathe of missions given to you by corporations. There's various multiplayer options too that see you defending a base from a ravenous horde of aliens, or teaming up with two other players to try and take down even more enormous bosses. In short, there's always something to do, and the bite-sized challenges never last more than a handful of minutes each.
An energy system
There's an energy system here, but it rarely stops you from doing what you want to do, and almost every time you finish a level you're going to be able to upgrade the stats of your characters. There's a decent level of challenge here too - you're going to die, but it's obvious when you do that it's your fault. You made the mistake, and the next time you face that enemy you're going to try and do things differently - invariably, it works too.
Currently the game is in soft launch in a couple of countries for Android - click here and you can see if you're eligible to download it. The soft launch is slated to run for 30 days, before the game launches worldwide on both iOS and Android. Apparently that hard launch will feature even more content to sink your teeth into.
Despite its traditional core, Gigantic X takes ideas from Monster Hunter, Diablo, Lost Planet, and more. And it blends them into an experience that's both compulsive and satisfying. That's the perfect recipe for mobile gaming as far as we're concerned - which is why we're super excited for you all to be able to get your hands on this one.
