While looking through the wonderful racing games being highlighted for Steam Next Fest, I came across a game with what looked like a pair of light cycles from Tron used on the cover. Naturally, I had to check out the store page. With a name like Phaseshift and inspiration from the wonderful futuristic and combat racing games that I played when I was a kid, I was invested immediately.

Now, this was an alpha demo, and it certainly does feel that way. The UI could use some changes here and there to provide a better idea of when your abilities are ready. The visuals on the tracks could use a bit of pop. Overall it’s admittedly rough and the demo only had the option to play with bots. With all that said though, the potential seems great and I am looking forward to keeping an eye on this.

The first aspect to go over is the gameplay. If you’ve never played a racing game like Rollcage or Wipeout before, or more modern inspirations such as Grip: Combat Racing and Redout, you can expect to go very fast. That might seem redundant for a racing game, but it is an important distinction for these kinds of racing games. They’re meant to capture the feeling of high speeds the entire time.

What’s presented in the demo is fast, but doesn’t feel quite as fast as what inspired it. One reason for this is that it generally feels more open than similar games, which take advantage of the player’s perspective by boxing them in with terrain or tunnels to give more of an emphasis on speed. It’s also worth noting that a common aspect of these kinds of racing games is that the vehicles typically vary when it comes to their speed, acceleration, handling, etc. However, there is a “Bikes” menu in the demo with only one bike to choose from with a selection of stats, so there may be a better-suited bike for me later on in development.

When it comes to the two tracks available, I like the variety. The city track is longer, tighter, and has light tilts but feels very level. The arctic track is more rounded, but it’s also a lot more open, has more variety with the terrain, and has ramps for some nice moments of airtime. It’s up to personal preference on which is better, but they both feel like solid initial tracks. All I would ask for from a gameplay perspective is that they’re longer.

The eight abilities available in the demo, with half of them needing to be unlocked, stand out pretty well from one another. The offensive abilities in particular are pretty simple but some of them are difficult to use at first. The basic ones that were available in the demo shoot straight ahead or with a slight arc, which conflicts with the natural slopes and tilts in the tracks. Some of the locked weapons have actual tracking but are limited in usage, so the initial abilities do have their own benefits. I can personally say that while at first it is frustrating to see your shots hit the sloped ground behind your opponent, it does feel incredibly satisfying when you learn to land them.

In regards to the visuals, I’m not sick of the cyberpunk aesthetic at all so I’m a big fan. The vehicles are inspired by the Extreme-G series, which was likely inspired by Tron to begin with. The difference from the latter is that there is no rider/pilot on top of it. The driver is situated inside the vehicle instead. There is a simple slider system of saturation and hues for customizing your bike, which allows for a lot of variances already on just the one bike available.

Visually, the tracks themselves are great ideas, but still a work in progress. Since the game is an alpha and the developer has mentioned that there are placeholders being used, I have a good sense of how they want it to look. A lot can be fixed with higher-res models and textures. The snow on the arctic track was a bit blinding at certain points, but I really enjoy the contrast with the purple sky as well as the brief use of water. The city track could just use a few more flourishes to cement that cyberpunk aesthetic, but it was otherwise very fun to zip on its highways while passing a giant hologram lady.

There isn’t too much to be said about the audio as there were only a few music tracks available in the demo and only one in particular used for races. Of course, I would much prefer hearing more than one song while racing (a longer one would be great too), but I am an absolute sucker for synth. Basing it off what I heard, I enjoy the direction!

Phaseshift is not the most polished game that I played during Steam Next Fest. It’s also hasn’t been the most popular either. However, it was fun to play and it has the ingredients to make something really special in a genre that could always use more games. It’s certainly rough but it is an alpha build and the solo dev working on this is very communicative with the community that is being built around it.

I believe that smaller games like this are the ones that most benefit from events like Steam Next Fest. There are a whole lot of games and projects out there that all individually appeal to someone, and sometimes it just needs a little more exposure to be found by people who would enjoy it the most. Phaseshift has the potential to fill that place for me and I’ll undoubtedly be following its development from now on. If you think it might pique your interest too, the demo is still available on Steam.

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