REPLACED - 2.5d cyberpunk action platformer where everything is pixel art; literally "replaced" The Last Night

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Romeo

Romeo

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Feb 4, 2023
Probably the most excited I've been for a video game. There is a free demo out in the Steam page if you want to check it out.


REPLACED is a 2.5d action platformer cyberpunk game made by Belarusian studio Sad Cat Studios, which has since become a stereotypical Slav company by relocating to Cyprus for better networking and more resources due to Belarus being sanctioned for participating in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The game's main appeal is the pixelated style of the characters and the backgrounds being 3d but also pixelated with blur and glow effects, giving the game a 2.5d style that turns the gameplay into a PC wallpaper, so basically, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Here are some of my screenshots of the demo.

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Since the occurrence of a nuclear incident that caused a worldwide collapse, a bunch of scientists and corporate leaders united and formed a conglomerate to rebuild America: Phoenix Corporation. With it came a massive walled cyberpunk city built by Phoenix Corporation called Phoenix, Not-Arizona. You follow REACH, an AI that has since taken over its human inventor Warren following a botched experiment and has escaped a crackdown by Phoenix in its corporate laboratory. REACH escaped the city but must come back to the laboratory to return Marcus' conscience back to his human body, fighting through gangs and corporate police along the way.

Here are some trailers:

And some gameplay videos:
Stuff that occurs right after the demo, where Tempest brings Reach to his settlement outside of Phoenix after escaping from the Termites gang.​
Commentary from the game's developers with the Atari Podcast with footage of the first hour of the game in the background.

I forgot to mention, the publishing company for REPLACED, Thunderful, is owned by Atari. ​

And some songs from the OST:

Having played the demo, besides the gorgeous graphics, the movement is easy (WASD, 'Space' to jump and dodge) and the combat is intuitive. Your left-click is your main attack, in which you are free to spam it. Enemies have two attacks: an attack that can be counterattacked (an alert overhead in yellow) and ones that MUST be dodged (an exclamation point alert overhead in red). Counterattacks can be done via the right-click in the mouse. There is bar in the shape of a gun in the bottom left that fills up as you attack enemies. Once full, by pressing 'E', you get to insta-kill an enemy with a cool cutscene with your weapon. 'E' is also your main key for interactions with background objects. The developers mentioned that the combat is heavily inspired from the Batman: Arkham series. Platforming is inspired by Inside, Uncharted, and the Prince of Persia. (Source)

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Combat screen​
Insta-kill animation 1​
Insta-kill animation 2​

There is also an in-game UI "diegetic" device called the Wingman, which is a micro-computer that REACH holds that contains the story objectives, music tracks, lore, and brightness. Bringing up the Wingman is through pressing 'J.'

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Wingman​

It is to note that REPLACED was inspired by an unreleased "game" called The Last Night that is still stuck in development hell for over a decade (late 2014). Developed by Frenchman Tim Soret from concept art of a game jam that is a 2d cyberpunk platformer, Soret gave it that 2.5d pixel-art vibe that shocked audiences to line up their wallets in preparation for the release of the game that heavily inspired the art-style of REPLACED.


Unfortunately, Soret voiced opinions supporting Gamergate that caused the Swedish cuck publisher of his studio Oddtales, Raw Fury, to drop support for the game. Soret, meanwhile, was dumping political and philosophy opinions on Twitter, ignoring the development process. For almost 10 years, The Last Night has been stuck in pre-production until 2024, where production finally started with a programmer finally being hired.

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When compared to REPLACED, this only amounts to incompetence, as the three Belarusians who were inspired by The Last Night started developing their game in 2018 and are on track to release it fully in April 2026. People are meme-ing on Soret's incompetence declaring that REPLACED has literally "replaced" The Last Night as the definitive 2.5d pixel-art cyberpunk action-platformer game. However, it seemed that REPLACED spooked Oddtales to speed up development of the game, and Soret is putting out more The Last Night stuff in his Twitter account.

The demo is out right now, and REPLACED will be released on 14 April 2026.

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This does look incredible, I agree! Thanks for sharing, I'll definitely give the demo a try hoping that the gameplay or the story are captivating enough for me to buy it
 
Thanks for bringing attention to it. Looks actually very interesting. and I love the art style.
Put it on my wishlist. But I will wait for some actual reviews of the full game before I pull the trigger.
 
Looks slick. Hope it's good!
 
Guess I'll be the first to post my thoughts.

Unfinished playthrough review​

Background​

Duration: ~4 hours in
Difficulty: Started on hard difficulty since I really don't anticipate a challenge from the combat, though from the combat encounters, I am more convinced that a higher difficulty mean enemies are more annoying due to higher health.
Game cost: US$20
Steam Page:

Is it woke?​

  • As it pertains to LGBTQ+ propaganda, there is nothing of that sort. With enemies, male enemies are melee and tanks. Female enemies are usually assassin and scout-types. Majority of enemies are male.
  • Racial diversity? From what I saw, everyone is basically white except two important NPCs and some chef, who they are all black.
Make with that if you will.

Graphics​

11/10. The atmosphere, backgrounds, and pixel-art are done excellently.

Cinematics​

Kino with nice blur effects in addition to excellent graphics. I loved the cinematic intro cutscene of the first boss. I think the game relies a bit too heavily into cutscenes though, sidelining gameplay.

Sound​

There is no voice acting. Conversations are through text screens with a typing sound that can get annoying. Ambience and sound effects are still really good.

Story​

Although it is a stereotypical backdrop with an evil corporation in a cyberpunk setting, I think the story is very intriguing since it pertains heavily to abuses in healthcare and also reverses the evil AI controlling everything.
  • The AI once controlled almost everything in the evil corporation but is now relegated to controlling its human inventor following an accident that reverted the human and AI's consciences, and the AI is trying to restore his inventor's conscience back to his body.
  • Organ harvesting disguised as organ donating is the largest backdrop of the story, of which poor people are either paid or forced to donate organs to the elites. From what I read, organ donating is the best cure that doctors had to fight radiation poisoning, so most likely, the elites are somehow getting radiation poisoning and are trying to get new organs.
  • The setting's backdrop is that the nuclear bomb tests actually destroyed America, turning the country 1/3 radioactive (hence what is causing radiation sickness everywhere that made the medical community turn to organ harvesting) and made people distrust the government and to follow the evil corporation.

Setting​

(From the OP) Since the occurrence of a nuclear incident that caused a worldwide collapse, a bunch of scientists, hospitals, and corporate leaders united and formed a conglomerate to rebuild America: Phoenix Corporation. With it came a massive cyberpunk city built by Phoenix Corporation called Phoenix-City, Not-Arizona, to reflect the values of the Corporation in contrast to the failures of the US government.

Initially, Phoenix-City had many districts, but when the Corporation started building in its central districts, the "Towers"—skyscrapers that function as mini-cities with residential, office, school, and shopping amenities, they forcibly moved all of the city's residents into the central city and built a wall around it to stave off outsiders. Districts outside the wall became abandoned and are taken over by gangs and anarchy.

One district managed to stay peaceful called "the Station," named after an abandoned train station that now serves as a haven for folks outside the wall as well as a hub for the player. "The Station" is led by a council of NPCs that are listed in the Characters section. "The Station" currently has an agreement with the Corporation that folks in the settlement will donate any organs that they have left in exchange for medication and food.

I appreciate that although you feel all the beats of a generic cyberpunk story, it still incorporates different elements to feel a bit more original.

Characters​

  • Antagonists
    • Phoenix Corporation - the evil corporation of the game that controls Phoenix-City and enforces its dominion with its corporate police department, and is responsible for organ harvesting operation around the region. With the explosion of the corporate laboratory that caused your protagonist's predicament, Phoenix has been shutting everything down and is killing anyone connected to the incident.
    • Termites - the only gang in the game—cannibals who fought against Phoenix and seized control of their most profitable coal mine Prospero and utilizing the gear there as weapons.
  • Protagonist
    • Reach/Warren Marsh- Your player character—following an accident at a Phoenix corporate laboratory that switched the minds of the laboratory's AI R.E.A.C.H. and its human inventor Warren, you as Reach now controls Warren's body while Warren's conscience is stuck in the supercomputer. Phoenix shutting everything down and cutting all loose-ends forced Reach to leave Phoenix-City, and now you must lead him back to the laboratory inside the City to restore its inventor's conscience back to his body. Warren looks like Geralt with greyish-black hair.
      • I find Reach intriguing as obviously it was developed by Phoenix to be the main AI of that specific laboratory with sinister functionality as it pertains to its organ harvesting operations, but it's also regaining a sense of humanity along its adventures.
  • Allies
    • Disposals - people who once lived in Phoenix-City who got their organs harvested by Phoenix and were forcibly deported from the city via 'disposal through drain.' Many surviving folks now live in "the Station."
      • Tempest (Rolf Hurd) - Blonde-hair rebel and a member of "the Station" council who wants to create a break into Phoenix-City's wall and transport folks living in "the Station" into the city for better conditions. Although he's arrogant, reckless, easily angered, and emotionally childish, he's also optimistic and extremely selfless to rescue anyone and to improve anyone's life. I have a rollercoaster of emotions towards him, ranging from annoyed to admirable.
      • Veronica - Tempest's redhead tradwife. Formerly a singer whose vocal organs were stolen by Phoenix, Tempest rescued her and gave her a voice modulator so that she can speak again. She now works as a nurse in the game and constantly worries that Tempest's recklessness may end up killing him and Reach.
      • Susan - a lonely girl in "the Station" that takes care of the arcade. She is also desperate for friends and wants to be befriend Reach. Beating her high score in the arcade machines give health benefits as rewards, making her really useful.
      • Robert Ironwood - one of "the Station" council members; formerly the head of Phoenix's Prospero coal mine and is filled with guilt for losing many of his people and the mine to the Termites, distrusts Tempest heavily due to his recklessness that will cause more innocent people to die and attempts to stop his shenanigans; is black. Besides being a grumpy old man, there is nothing much more to him than being a foil to Tempest.
      • Matriarch Francesca - one of "the Station" council members; the moderate between Tempest and Ironwood, wanting peace in "The Station" and be on good terms with the Corporation but at the same time sympathizes with Tempest knowing the situation in "the Station" is untenable; is also black. She's fine.
      • Yo-Yo - the main inventor of "the Station" and a close friend to Tempest, helps build and fix contraptions to help Reach head back into Phoenix-City. Formerly an inventor at Phoenix, he left the walled city out of disillusionment. He's chill.

Puzzles​

I've only encounter two from what I remember. I also find the side-quests to be mini-puzzles. They're all pretty simple.

Other cool stuff​

There is an in-game arcade where you can play several arcade games like Frogger and a maze game.

Bugs​

Nothing that is notable to be mentioned.

Combat​

It's meh.

Combat is fast-paced and the instructions on fighting are simple.

You get a max of 4 enemies in an arena. If there are enemies in the background, they are in queue to join the arena once you kill an enemy in the arena. Combat ends when all enemies in the background queue and arena are dead. It can get repetitive in maybe the first thirty to forty minutes since it's just spamming left-click though the game progressively gives you more tools to fight (and more keys to use) and gives more moves to the enemies.

Nevertheless, I really dislike group fights that include both armored enemies and shooters together. You can't hit armored enemies unless you do a specific move to fully disable it, but that move can get cancelled out if you get shot. If the armored enemy is behind the shooter, you can't hit the shooter at all because your attack just got blocked by the armored enemy. Fights can get frustrating, but I guess I made it all the worse since I was playing on hard. More enemies on the arena and the background queue also make it difficult to tell what is going on. That is why I really like the first boss fight, because although he is both an armored enemy, a shooter, and a tank, he is that one-at-a-time, allowing you to understand what to do.

There also needs to be a notification that your special one-shot 'E' ability is now available because I have to quickly focus my eyes on the bottom-left to see if my ability is available and then quickly look back to the center of the screen. A comparison is Witchfire, of which spells that are now available would have a sound effect and if toggled, pops up in the top-middle screen. Dodging also eats up your special ability bar, which I found to be annoying.

Auto-saves​

I really do not like the save system that this game have. There are just way too many auto-save checkpoints everywhere. There could be checkpoints between two close cutscenes. There are also checkpoints that are right after a cutscene ends so you can't rewatch it if you miss something. There are also weird checkpoints that start a long way back before an arena fight, making it repetitive to walk there again.

I wish I could pick my saves and go back to them, such as switching to a specific chapter from the beginning etc. There are so many auto-saves that ultimately you can never really go back because you miss a cutscene or a quest so it's a full straight line to beating the game.

Other stuff that I wish is in the game​

  • Dialogue boxes in cutscenes should not be timed but triggered to close or move to the next scene by the player.
  • When you play a specific song in the Wingman, the song cancels out once you exit. I wish the song continues as you exit the Wingman so you can play while listening to it.

Consensus​

All in all, I thought the game excelled in everything except the combat and some quality of life nitpicks I find lacking. Overall, for US$20, I say it's a worthwhile purchase and it's a really generous offer for how much work is put into the game. Just don't expect a combat-intensive game though or you'll be disappointed. The game heavily leans into more a cinematic (movie) gaming experience carried by its gorgeous 2.5d graphics, immersive atmostphere, intriguing storytelling, and cool-looking cutscenes than combat, though there are times where the combat does shine.
 
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Played a bit after work. Looks absolutely gorgeous, I’m enjoying the story and characters well enough and movement is decent.

The combat is absolute dogshit though once armored enemies start popping up. I’m playing on Hard but I’m considering lowering the difficulty. The fights aren’t really that difficult but it just becomes a chore.
 
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