Dust & Neon review

I’m a cowboy…on steel legs I stride…

Twin-stick shooters with roguelike qualities are pervasive on Steam. But with invigorating play mechanics, ample rewards for perseverance, and an aesthetic that balances style with performance, Dust & Neon aspires to stand out from the crowd. Largely, David Marquardt, the one-man studio behind apps like Pull My Tongue, Fluffy, Glitch Dash, and Hexaflip, succeeded and has created an action game that’s a good fit for brisk play sessions.

Starting a new run delivers a morsel of exposition, with dialog detailing a scientist named Dr. Finkel creating an army of cloned cowboys from a scrap of old body parts. Their assignment is to bring a halt to the proliferation of bots across a quartet of zones. Essentially, the Stetson-wearing assassins do all the killing while Dr. Finkel creates new technologies from the pieces of slaughtered robots. Sure, the motivation might be skeletal, but you’ll be gunning down droids after a succinct tutorial.

Keep the Chamber Filled 

Much like 2018’s SYNTHETIK: Ultimate, Dust & Neon tasks players with manual reloads. After running out of ammo, you’ll have to tap a button several times to new bullets or shells for your weapon. As such, firefights typically exhibit staccato pacing. After a surge of red-hot lead is launched down your aiming marker, your cowboy will seek protection before launching his next barrage.

Fortunately, most environmental objects function as cover, allowing you to take a defensive position where enemy bullets will whiz innocuously overhead. While you pop up and can fire from behind shielding, Dust & Neon likes to complement its humanoids with scampering aliens that will attempt to flank you.

The Almost Great Train Robbery 

Marquardt attempts to mix things up with mission objects that range from railroad heists, securing blueprints, eliminating all enemies, or destroying structures. But essentially, standard missions all feel similar. However, divergence is found in Dust & Neon’s six boss battles. These often abandon the cover-based play for tense showdowns where you have to figure out the best method for wearing down the adversary’s abundant health bar. These segments aren’t bad but will feel a bit too formulaic for action game fans. They can be repeated to level up your cowboy, with each success increasing the level of challenge.

As a roguelike, Dust & Neon purports to have thousands of different guns. But they’re all just statistical variants on your basic revolver, shotgun, or rifle. Yes, there are just three weapon types despite Dust & Neon’s interpretation of the old West having computers and autonomous robots. In execution, you’ll notice that some guns have better qualities like improved damage, accuracy, or magazine sizes. But don’t expect firearms to feel radically different or have Borderlands-like elemental-based capacities. You’ll probably find an advantageous gun and stick with it, recycling any newfound weapons into scrap. Another minor issue is the game’s hub and connected areas- why do I have to work so far to start a new mission?

Send in the Cowboy Clones

At present, you can upgrade your cowboy into a two-fold tech tree, as well as use collectible cores to purchase perks such as the distribution of rare weapons, a gunshop, single-mission boosts, cloning, and a tool that lets you materialize forfeited firearms. The last two elements factor into the game’s integration of permadeath, removing much of the sting of defeat. Mercifully, you’ll only have to relinquish any cash and cores acquired on the current mission in addition to your current loadout when you’re cloned. You get to keep all your character augmentation and stashed money, providing a sense of progress.

At present, Dust & Neon is enjoyable and well-suited for the new generation of PC portables like the Steam Deck and Ayaneo 2. Elevated by high-pressure firefights that outgun most peers, Marquardt should be proud of his effort. The biggest caveat is the game’s $30 price, which is a bit higher than most of the game’s twin-stick, roguelike rivals.

Dust & Neon was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.