Combat in The Ascent sees you equipped with two different weapons that you can swap between, culled from a variety of weapons you’ll either loot or purchase along the way. Thankfully, all the moments in-between kept me pretty enraptured until the final credits rolled. You can absolutely follow the moment to moment story beats well enough, but any lengthy moment of dialogue did start to see my interest wander a bit. Unlike that book, The Ascent at least gives you a codex, helping you understand the difference in the types of A.I., the various factions, and other terminology that’s not exactly common in everyday use. The story of The Ascent is interesting enough, but does get a little bogged down in its own lore and unique terminology in a way that sort of reminds me of my first attempt at reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer novel a long time ago. ![]() In doing so, you’ll come across a variety of different weapons, augmentations, and other skills necessary to overcome a variety of enemies that swarm at you from every side as you move from zone to zone, following quest markers and uncovering new side missions along the way. As the story unravels, you’ll take on a series of jobs from a variety of eclectic characters in an attempt to unravel the mystery of what happened to your former employer. As an indent (indentured laborer) working for The Ascent Group (think megacorporation), you’re stuck in the middle of a mess when The Ascent Group essentially goes offline and defaults, making it ripe for corporate takeover in a not so peaceful manner. The Ascent is also filled to the brim with action. It’s one of the neater effects that I think The Ascent really nails, and helps make the world feel alive even though you’re viewing it in a sort of top-down isometric way. Granted, you don’t interact with them much outside of the assigned quest givers you encounter, but they do react a bit when you bump into them, and if you start up a firefight in the middle of crowded street, they’ll react appropriately, running away screaming as you take on various corporate goons and robotic menaces. It’s also a world that’s absolutely alive with life, filled to the brim with NPC’s as you make your way across the various sectors that make up a pretty large overall map. ![]() ![]() It absolutely breathes life into what I envision a dystopian cyberpunk future to be, and there is so much detailed, fantastic scenery in this game that you’ll really be putting that screenshot button to the test on Xbox Series X. If your vision of a cyberpunk world is the rain drenched neon streets of Blade Runner, filled with garish holographic corporation logos, advertisements, downtrodden denizens roaming the streets and so on, then chances are you’ll love the visual design of The Ascent a great deal. That said, I also really enjoyed my time spent with the game, and having it available on Game Pass day one is an absolute steal with this one. It’s also worth mentioning that this is another day one Game Pass release for Xbox owners, so if you’re at all on the fence after reading this review, it can’t hurt to try the game for yourself. The Ascent drops this week on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC, bringing with it an action-packed, cyberpunk infused, RPG adventure from developer Neon Giant.
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