Tune Into the future of sporting entertainment and flip out as we delve into the latest title from Roll7 and Private Division, Rollerdrome.
Rollerdrome launched on PlayStation 4, Playstation 5, and PC under a week ago but we’ve had to get our skates on to catch up on this review because I haven’t been able to tear myself away from this absolute masterclass in controlled mayhem. Initially presented as a dip into the near future, this sporting sim introduces a world where Rollerball seems reasonable and the Running Man is a distinct possibility. On screen entertainment is now a mix of Tony Hawks turned run and gun, where eager competitors bow through high flying arenas with naught more than their wits, a few incendiary rounds, a pair of roller skates, and a crash helmet to save them from a rather explosive end. Safety first.
As one of these eager entrants and fast paced cannon fodder, players picking up Rollerdrome will find themselves entering the big leagues of an arena sport that makes speed skating seem pedestrian. Strapping on a pair of skate shoes, a regulation vest, and that critical crash helmet, players must navigate a range of arenas, taking out a team of variously armed targets before the same AI controlled minions bow your dreams of being a top entertainer sky high. While Rollerdrome seems like a simple concept, it’s executed with a level of concentrated skill that makes the entire endeavor absolutely thrilling to play. The first moments introduce a brutal concept as a comic book aesthetic, all inked outlines, and cell shading, taking the muted tones that might be straight out of an adult visual novel, without ever feeling the need to gorge in blood. That doesn’t mean that the visuals are underwhelming. While the color palate might be streamlined, pop art explosions, bombastic backdrops, and aggressive enemies all twist the ideas that landed so well in OlliOlli World for a darker 3D world.
Tumbling out into this area is, once again, a streamlined experience for beginners. The in game tutorial benefits from a controller and keeps initial movement easy to understand. Push forward, tilt left, lean right, and you will get rolling. A series of training interludes do an excellent job of slowly introducing basic movement and combat mechanics, and making comparisons to established skater sims obvious. Running up against ramps and grinding down rails, there are barely a few button presses to pull off flips, turns, grinds, and more. All of these are fire and forget with zero chance of failure. The worst that will happen is that forward momentum might stall, and that doesn’t seem so bad? Well, that’s until the thug, snipers, and mechs start gunning for you. In essence, this is the core of Rollerdrome. Once any player picks up a weapon and enters any of the myriad of encounters, it’s all down to pulling air and gunning down enemies.
While the concept is simple, the way developer Roll7 weaves a multitude of gameplay mechanics into this stylish shooter makes the difference. Combat in Rollerdrome is essentially a kickflip to traditional FPS titles. Given a range of weapons and a number of different enemies and environments, players can unload on enemies and even use rocket launchers to dispatch any opposition. However, that alone does not make Rollerdrome much more inventive than Quake. That’s why you’ll absolutely need to perform tricks to generate new ammo.
Roll7 forces potential competitors to actively engage with the fluid movement mechanics of Rollerdrome, whether it’s skating along the side of a wall, forward flipping, or grinding along rails. You’ll need to permanently build speed to run up ramps and traverse open gorges, all while looking cool to score reloads for any of the game’s weapons. Intertwining these simple goals using distinctly different control methods suddenly starts to make Rollerdrome more than a simple FPS. Busting out of the early arenas and tutorials, things quickly escalate.
While the inaugural skating rink introduces the basic movement mechanics and throws a few basic enemies at entrants, maps become far more elaborate and the breadth of adversaries widens significantly when things progress. A range of desert valleys, industrial complexes, and even shopping malls add in floating arenas, huge chasms, jumps, tougher turns, and environmental obstacles that make lining up a shot a much more time sensitive endeavor. To add to the increasing complex navigation, Rollerdrome adds in a bunch of mobs with distinct and increasingly powerful abilities. These range from snipers with laser sights that cause no end of stress when trying to approach a target, rocket launching minions with their own shielding system, troops who disperse mines, and ridiculous flying mech suits.
Each of these aims to interrupt the flow that this arcade style skating shooter builds by either forcing players to change direction, dodge out the way, cutting off huge swathes of open space or simply drawing player’s attention away from their primary target. This increasingly complex mix of movement, attack, and defense challenges players to do more than simply react. In among the action, you’ll need to think and move, like DOOM or BPM. While individual systems don’t each require much thought or action, planning a route, picking a target, understanding your loadout, and then being unceremoniously forced to recalculate this all on the fly and at pace makes the entire game feel utterly chaotic.
Thankfully, there are some breaks from the high speed anarchy. Roll7 borrows a little Bayonetta and drops in a dodge system that can slow down game time significantly. During this brief interlude, there’s time to unload an entire clip, reorientate, or get out of harm’s way. Whichever really works. Like traditional FPS, there’s more than one option for taking down the AI opponents too. While the game’s primary pistols are high capacity but light on impact, the two shot rocket launcher requires a more manual touch. The shotgun falls as probably my favorite of the available arsenal, which adds in an extra rhythm based mechanic. Fire the shotgun when a time bar meets the crosshairs and the damage inflicted on a target skyrockets.
The necessity of movement, the variety of obstacles to movement, and the challenge of balancing a range of constant interruptions and threats, while picking off targets of opportunity make Rollerdrome a sublime cocktail of ideas. Every part of this game makes the whole something special. Sure, it is a single player shooter with little in the way of progression, but the same thing can be said of OlliOlli World and other skating sims. The progression system ties into challenges. Like collecting tokens and picking off targets in a particular way. The challenge is in overcoming your own ability. For that, I applaud Roll7 and Private Division, for not shoving this out the door as a multiplayer arena shooter.
Flowing frantic combat, constant momentum, a plethora of enemies, and plenty of chaotic combat across a diverse range of arenas. That’s Rollerdrome in a simple sentence, but much like this title, a seemingly simple idea doesn’t do justice to how good Rollerdrome really is. If you have the time jump in and get Rollerdrome, available now on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
