You could be forgiven for looking at Killsquad and thinking that it looks like just another co-operative shooter in a market already flooded with them.
You have your standard assault, tank and support characters to choose from and a generic science fiction story to boot.
Thankfully, once you begin to play it, you realise there is more depth here than your average co-op shooter.
Created by Barcelona-based studio Novarama, the game officially released on PC back in 2021 after an early access period.
On July 20th, 2023, it finally released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 true backwards compatibility.
You begin the game by doing the tutorial and picking one of the five characters Ekaar, Cassandra, Kosmo, Troy or Zero.
Each has different abilities and different play styles whether you are looking to deal damage from range or up close with melee.
I chose Troy who is a gunslinging alien with a southern drawl. His special abilities include a handy bullestorm ability which can get you out of tricky situations and a clone ability which makes doubles of you.
Seeing as it is a twin-stick shooter you move the character with the left analog stick and shoot with the right.That leaves the face buttons to use your abilities and the shoulder button to dodge.
In that way it is reminiscent of the arcade style gameplay of Housemarque’s games like Dead Nation.
While it is a co-op game, you can play single player as well as the campaign evolves through various contracts.
Your job as part of the Killsquad is to mop up the mess that is left behind as different space creatures swarm the procedurally generated levels.
Your job as part of the Killsquad is to mop up the mess that is left behind as different space creatures swarm the procedurally generated levels.
One mission sees you on a desert wasteland and the next you are on a planet full of crystals as you have to help out with the excavation effort.
The missions themselves are nothing special but the situations they put you in can quickly escalate as you end up being surrounded by enemies.
One mission sees you quickly rush from one shield to another as toxic gas fills up the rest of the area. To make matters worse swarms of enemies are coming at you and trying to force you away from the shield.
While you can try and survive on your own, if you host a public session other players can drop into your game and help you out. This is especially helpful when the other play is a support character and can heal you.
One of Killsquad's biggest strengths is how accessible it is and how easy it is to pick up and play. You are never bogged down by lore or overwhelmed by upgrade systems.
That streamlined approach is reflected in the weapons as you can quickly start buying better weapons. You earn credits for completing the contracts and also pick them up during missions.
Because the game costs €29.99 rather than being free to play, credits are plentiful, and you don't feel like you have to grind for hours just to be able to buy a new weapon.
It is a refreshing change to see a game that wants you to have fun and try out different weapons instead of feeling like you are stuck with the base game weapons for a long time.
There is plenty of content here given the price tag as well but the fact it is a paid title means it will be harder to convince a group of friends to all buy it, so you can team-up for some co-op action.
When there are a litany of free to play games like Warzone or Apex Legends on console already, Killsquad has a tough task trying to be people's go-to co-op shooter.
Despite this, it is still a fun and dynamic twin-stick shooter that doesn't do anything to reinvent the formula but rather adds enough new elements to it to make it a unique experience on its own.
7/10
