Exit the Gungeon, a spin-off of the popular roguelike Enter the Gungeon, will soon debut exclusively on the newly announced Apple Arcade. After its release in 2017, Enter the Gungeon received almost universally positive reviews. Screen Rant gave Enter the Gungeon’s Nintendo Switch physical edition 4.5/5 stars, calling it “one of the absolute best action roguelikes ever made.”
Earlier this month, Apple detailed its plans for Apple Arcade, the streaming game service the company announced back in March. Apple’s answer to game streaming platforms like Google Stadia, Apple Arcade will debut September 19 and cost $4.99 per month. The service has secured deals with dozens of developers, including heavyweights like Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and SimCity creator Will Wright, as well as plenty of exciting indie developers. Its lineup features a mix of exclusives and games that will be available on other platforms.
Exit the Gungeon will launch first on Apple Arcade, and is expected to eventually arrive on other platforms. A press release announcing the game doesn’t offer an exact release date, saying only that the game will be available soon. Developers Dodge Roll specifically refers to Exit the Gungeon as a spin-off rather than a sequel, pointing out that it’s a smaller game than Enter the Gungeon. Moreover, it will play entirely differently from its predecessor. While Enter the Gungeon was played from a top-down perspective, Exit the Gungeon is a 2D action platformer that will retain the bullet hell roots of the first game and generate random levels for each playthrough. Players are armed with a weapon that changes forms every few seconds, and higher combos reward better guns. Exit the Gungeon will also feature a selection of the weapons and items found in Enter the Gungeon, with Dodge Roll explaining, “We tried to cut out the ones that would suck in the new game, or that were just too boring.”
Exit the Gungeon’s publisher, Devolver Digital, has been on something of a winning streak lately, publishing recent hits like Ape Out and Gris. Its upcoming game Carrion has been getting a lot of positive attention since it was first shown at E3 2019, where Devolver continued its tradition of producing baffling, surreal, often surprisingly gory press conferences.
Despite the change of genre, Exit the Gungeon looks ready to build on the success of Enter the Gungeon. It’s great to see a developer taking chances rather than just replicating what’s worked before, though its timed exclusivity deal with Apple could be a risky move. Apple Arcade doesn’t yet have the player base of other platforms, and some players have recently lashed out against developers for signing exclusive PC distribution deals with Epic. Hopefully, Dodge Roll and Singlecore Games are able to avoid the backlash that some other developers have had to endure.
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Source: Dodge Roll/Reddit
