Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEREDACTED
Get ready to massacre monsters, race your rivals, and combat corpses of your fellow guards as you race to escape Black Iron Prison in the critically acclaimed roguelike, [REDACTED].
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Video reviews
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Community discussion
A fast, Hades-inspired action roguelike from Striking Distance Studios (The Callisto Protocol) where a low-ranking guard races rival survivors and infected inmates to the last escape pod out of Black Iron Prison.
Critics and players land in the same place: a confident, stylish, punchy Hades-like with a distinctive twist (rival survivors and a run clock), held back by grind, repetition and some design friction. Metacritic shows a 77 Metascore from 11 critics (9 positive, 2 mixed, 0 negative) and a 7.9 user score; Steam sits at Very Positive (about 82% of ~360 reviews). It launched Oct 27, 2024 on PC (Steam and Epic), PS5 and Xbox Series X as a full release, not early access, and Steam reviews show the game still being played and patched into 2026. Commercially it looks modest: a third-party Steam estimate puts gross revenue at only about $142k, though that tool is an order-of-magnitude guess and ignores console and Epic sales. The YouTuber whose ranking prompted this research put it in a fairly high B tier.
What players praise
- Combat feels smooth and punchy, with a mix of melee, gun and kick/push, and environmental hazards and destructible areas to exploit
- The Rivals system (competing survivors racing you to the escape pod, who you can sabotage via prison systems) is called a fresh take on the genre by several critics and players
- Strong comic-book / cel-shaded art style and dark humor that gives the Callisto Protocol universe a punk, arcade tone
- Fast-paced soundtrack (Mark Mothersbaugh is credited by a Steam reviewer) that matches the pace of the action
- Wide variety of suits, weapons and experiments to build around; specific weapons (e.g. broken bottles, shankers) are fan favorites
- Good level design and pacing once the game clicks; after the first win, many difficulty modifiers add replay value
- Plays well on Steam Deck and with a controller, per Steam reviewers
- Fighting your own corpse from previous runs and the do-or-die final run are memorable ideas
What players criticize
- Progression is very grindy: around six separate currencies, each unlocking one specific thing, and runs often yield only a handful of the one you need
- The first roughly 8 hours are described as a slog because difficulty starts high and upgrades arrive slowly
- Quick-time-event style button-combo minigames for attacking rivals get repetitive, often 10+ times per run (QTE can be turned off in settings)
- Persistent bugs reported, including a long-standing screen-blocking bug that ruined a run late in the game, a locked-door exploit, and crashes entering a rare computer room
- Difficulty scaling feels artificial to some, ramping as you play better rather than feeling earned
- Very little synergy between upgrades: players say pure single-target damage is the only real strategy and status effects are not worth taking because key enemies are immune
- Melee combat is considered weaker than the gun play by some critics, and level/room design gets repetitive
- Epic Games version reportedly has support problems, e.g. achievement sync and a broken launcher screen
- Constant choice between a temporary upgrade and currency for permanent unlocks: taking the currency leaves you underpowered and dying fast
Distinctive features
- Rival survivors race you to the single escape pod and you can attack them remotely through the prison's systems during the run
- You fight the corpse of your previous self / fallen guards, tying death into the loop
- Runs are on a clock, so speed matters more than in most Hades-style games; a top Steam review describes it as Hades on speed
- Final-run gimmick: after clearing objectives, a high-stakes do-or-die run can wipe your unlock progression if you fail
- Twin-stick shooter plus melee blend in the Callisto Protocol sci-fi prison setting with a punk graphic-novel look
Divided opinions
- Rivals system: praised as the standout idea by critics, but disliked by players who find it a hindrance and time pressure in the early game
- Comparison to Hades: some say it borrows heavily but has its own personality, others call it a worse clone while a few say it beats Hades in places
- The do-or-die reset: loved by some as real stakes, hated by others as deleting progress
- Difficulty: rewarding once the rhythm clicks versus unforgiving from the start
Repetition and friction
- Multi-currency grind and slow unlocks, especially early
- Repeated button-combo minigames to hit or hinder rivals
- The end-game reset: failing the final do-or-die run wipes unlocks, which several Steam reviewers call the worst design choice (others later came to like it)
- Bosses and rooms that throw a lot of stuff at you and feel unfair or badly designed to some users
- Keeping track of several rivals while fighting hordes under a time limit feels stressful and cluttered
Hoped-for improvements
- Add in-game health bar / clearer health readout and a slot or list view of boons and which are mutually exclusive
- Allow full controller button remapping (asked for on Steam discussions and in reviews)
- Better explain the multiple currencies and accessibility options such as Guard Mode, and reduce the currency bottlenecks
- Make the rival system less punishing early on; some players asked for an option to remove the rival entirely
- Fix the recurring screen-blocking and softlock bugs, and improve Epic version support
- Broaden build variety and synergies so non-damage upgrades matter; critics also wanted more variety in rooms and enemies
Launched Oct 27, 2024 (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X) at $24.99 from KRAFTON and also released on Epic Games Store. Launch criticism on Steam forums targeted the marketing and trailers, and the Epic version has been called unsupported. Critic reception was solid and consistent (only GameSpot at 60 and GAMES.CH at 76 fell below 80), while Steam user sentiment is Very Positive but with a small sample. Steam reviews through 2026 show players with 100 to 700+ hours still playing, with bug complaints about a screen-blocking glitch persisting. SteamSpy lists 0-20k owners and very low concurrent users, and a Boxleiter-based estimate gives about $142k gross / $42k net on Steam alone, so treat the commercial picture as unverified and probably understated for multi-platform.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam app metadata, review summary, SteamSpy owners and tags (local file) ↗
- Steam store page: description, features, Very Positive summary, system requirements ↗
- Steam community discussion topics: marketing criticism, controller mapping, rival removal requests, Epic version issues ↗
- Metascore 77 (11 critics), user score 7.9 (75 ratings), critic and user praise/criticism summary ↗
- Per-outlet critic scores and verdict summaries (But Why Tho 95, Voxel 85, GameSpot 60, etc.) ↗
- Metacritic user review themes: combat and art praised, grind and repetition criticised ↗
- Third-party Boxleiter estimate of gross and net Steam revenue ↗
- The YouTuber's verbal ranking: pretty high B tier ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 3 (2025)
Redacted is a content-rich, Hades-like action roguelike from the indie wave he has been showcasing. He already made a long deep-dive video on its design, so he keeps this quick. He thinks it looks great and feels like a full game, but has real design issues with its combat depth and roguelike elements. He places it high in B tier, partly because its grindy length kept him playing.
What the creator praises
- Looks great visually
- Large amount of content, feels like a full-fledged game
- Gameplay feels good at first
- One of few Hades-likes with this much content
- Long and grindy enough to keep him playing for a while
Issues raised by the creator
- Hard to combo things together easily as you play more
- Roguelike elements are pretty disappointing
- Rival system (NPCs racing to beat the run faster) keeps you on a clock and isn't to his taste
- Quite a few design issues when examined closely
- Gameplay is only okay overall
Design observations
- Rival system where NPCs try to finish the run faster than you, creating constant time pressure
