Cults, combat, and celestial bodies are what make-up Chorus, an incredible third-person space combat shooter. Accompanied by tight controls, fast-paced action, and clever abilities, there’s a lot to love. Chorus is ambitious and creative, often playing outside the boundary of the box for what to expect, and it all pays off. Chorus is an instant gem, and shouldn’t be overlooked as we are nearing the end of the year with a memorable and incredible space combat game.
Deep Silver Fishlabs (formerly just Fishlabs) made the solid Galaxy On Fire series. The team splintered, with many going on to form ROCKFISH Games that would end up making EVERSPACE and EVERSPACE 2. The developers that stayed were acquired by Deep Silver, and now we have the sensational Chorus. You can see the DNA of Galaxy On Fire here, in addition to influences from Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and Freelancer. The story is rather simple, there’s an oppressive cult known as the Circle, and they’ve become out of control and taking over the galaxy. You play as Nara, an exceptional star pilot created by the same cult you’re about to destroy. She is hellbent on destroying them, and spends most of the game making allies. Chorus doesn’t waste any time getting to the fun part, with the developers aware of what players want to be doing. Once you’re reunited with her old ship which she hid away and deactivated years ago. But once you’re piloting the Forsaken again, is when things get good. It’s from here where things kick off and you start assembling any and all who will help take down the Circle.
Nara is not only a fantastic pilot, she’s gifted as well – she’s able to use powers called “rites” that help her in and out of combat. Initially she’s neutral, having locked away her powers like her ship. During this journey, Nara will re-acquire her gifts one-by-one and they’re wholly unique and exciting to use. The first one you’ll get is a sense ability that will pulse the surrounding area and reveal points of interest. These points will be new allies, money, or even parts to enhance elements of your ship. Other times they’ll be contacts for missions. Later on you’ll acquire the leap ability, which lets Nara teleport close or behind enemies. This closes the distance and helps avoid taking damage. In other cases, it can be used to bypass shields to access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible. Discovering Nara’s powers as you progress is just as exciting for the player as it is for her.
Commanding the ship is straightforward and fun, and the controls are so dialed in. I initially played with a controller, but found greater precision both in shooting and flight with keyboard and mouse. You’ll have regular propulsion, afterburners, and sublight speed to navigate around the area. There are gates that can propel you faster, and jump gates that let you hop to different sections of the solar system. Chorus has me constantly on the move, and doing things I’ve never done in a space game before. The Forsaken quickly introduces you to the “drift trance”, an ability to slide in any direction with your current momentum. Seeing how the ship transforms going into this mode, and how it uses Newtonian physics to accomplish this is extremely stylish and satisfying. The drift in addition to the dodge roll are essential to Chorus’ fluidity and mobility that made me feel like an ace pilot myself.
There’s three types of weapons you’ll acquire: gatling gun, lasers, and missiles. They are swappable and upgradable as you find new gear either by completing missions or exploring areas. There’s a simple, yet effective system of taking out shields with lasers, then following up with the gatling gun to finish them off. With the more armored enemies, the same applies, but the missiles will finish them off quickly. Loot is light, but deliberate in terms of upgrading weapons, armor, and shields. It’s a simple system, but it’s easy to grasp without spending too much time in menus. When you’ve got all of the weapons and even just a couple of the abilities, this makes the space combat dynamic and kinetic in ways you’ve never experienced the genre before. It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face when you know you’re about to shoot something. When you gain access to the hangar, either through the story or free roam, you’ll be able to purchase upgrades to hull and shield, alongside more powerful weapons.
Over the course of twelve hours or so, you’ll be taking part in all sorts of activities. Missions are broken up into two categories: main and side. You’ll do your fair share of defending against pirates, escorting ships, engaging in races, investigating mysteries, and more. Sometimes these tasks will be chained and follow a series of events before they’re resolved, and it manages to still be fun. The main story is the most appealing, but the side missions feed into the goings on with the main thread, so it all feels like meaningful work rather than just hollow quests.
This is an open solar-system, set mainly inside a couple of asteroid clusters, and the surrounding planets. Starting off in Stega Central, you’re introduced to the world and structure. The following five other locations are only accessible via jump gates, and you’ll see awe-inspiring vistas at every turn. It does a really great job at giving a sense of scale, and you’ll feel small in the grand scheme of things. You’re free to explore at your leisure, but it does have limitations. It’s a place you just want to cruise around, exploring for hidden treasures, discovering every memory, and completing all of the side quests.
You’ll gain proficiencies through the Mastery system. Either just using or performing specific tasks like killing enemies while boosting will net you buffs and improvements to the particular weapon. The masteries system encourages you to experiment with different play styles, weapons, and abilities to become more and more powerful. This is another area that Chorus excels, encouraging the player to never settle or be comfortable sitting still.
A soundtrack can seamlessly blend into the background to enhance everything around it, be very distracting, or can stand out above everything. In Chorus, the latter is true because this soundtrack absolutely slaps. Pedro Camacho’s work here is really memorable throughout your time with the game.
Chorus is breathtaking. It uses colors to evoke cold or warmth based on whether you’re above or below the shadow of the asteroids floating about. The ship designs glow and almost breathe, just wonderfully designed. There’s already a photo mode in the game, so the team at Deep Silver Fishlabs know that this’ll be a screenshot machine. While the game supports NVIDIA DLSS, I was able to achieve 165fps without it enabled. What I’m saying is that the game is incredibly performant, at all times and in all scenarios. Having DLSS in the game just means that it will scale wonderfully on all sorts of systems. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the hard crashes I experienced, severely hampering my progress as I couldn’t get past some sections of the game. Hopefully these issues should be ironed out for launch, but this really slows your momentum.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 9900K @ 5Ghz (Turbo)
– Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM 97 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
– Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
– EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12GB GDDR6X FTW3 ULTRA
– Seagate FireCuda SSD (500GB)
– Seagate BarraCuda SSD (1TB + 2TB)
– OWC Aura P12 NVMe SSD (2TB)
Chorus has exceptional gameplay and a vast expanse to explore within the confines of its planetary system. It unfortunately suffers from a technical issues that hold it back from greatness. And while it may not have the best voice acting or story, it more than makes up for it with its space combat and freedom to explore through its design. Deep Silver Fishlabs have made gameplay the focal point, and it shows. Chorus is the kind of game you can’t get enough of, and have to experience everything as it’s so rich and engaging.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
