Nuclear Blaze review

“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long”

Typically, when the marketing proclaims, “From the Creator of…” you can expect a retread. Mercifully, that’s not the case with Sébastien Bénard’s Nuclear Blaze. The former Dead Cells lead developer crafted an early version of Blaze at the April 2021 Ludum Dare game jam across a 48-hour period. Following an encouraging reaction from attendees, Bénard converted his submission into a complete game that was released on Steam six months later. A recently released Switch port adds an additional mode, extending Nuclear Blaze’s succinct firefighting adventure.

The game’s plotline begins with its protagonist battling a remote wildfire. As you’re extinguishing the blaze, you discover a clandestine nuclear facility and enter the building in the hopes of rescuing any survivors. Smartly, Blaze doesn’t pause the action for long drops of lore. Instead, the bulk of the exposition is conveyed through collectible documents. Interestingly, much of the mythos is linked to the fiction of the SCP Foundation- a collaborative writing community where the supernatural, non-traditional magic, and the contradictory freely intermingle. Although Blaze couldn’t be classified as horror, there’s a sense of trepidation as you descend deeper into the massive building, discovering additional morsels of backstory.

Fight Infernos, not the RNG

While navigating from one area to the next might make the game sound like a metroidvania, Nuclear Blaze is a decidedly linear trek. As such, you won’t have to worry about checking a map. While you earn some upgrades that expand your abilities, you won’t be burdened by conventional backtracking or getting lost. Unlike Dead Cells, there are no roguelike elements. Upon death, you’ll respawn without penalty at systematically-placed checkpoints.

As such, the main campaign is rather short, clocking in at about two hours. But after completion, you’ll have access to “Hold My Beer Mode”, a New Game+ that ups the difficulty but provides access to previously gated-off areas. The inclusion doesn’t completely alleviate the feeling that Nuclear Blaze is a fleeting experience. But it does provide a bit more longevity for those committed to putting out fires. Agreeably, Blaze also offers a Kid’s mode. This eliminates death, simplifies the control scheme, and increases the number of rescue vehicles. Ideally, other games would be this inclusionary.

“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!”

Your main gadget for batting the game’s conflagrations is a hose that sprays to the left and right as well as above you. Naturally, water supplies are limited and if you completely deplete your tank, you’ll emit an underpowered splash that can barely clear the immediate area in front of you. But instead of relying on that ability, you’ll probably visit the abundantly placed stations that instantly refill your reservoir. Mercifully, they replenish wirelessly, which is probably explained in some SCP fiction, somewhere.

Making your way through the facility can be nit-picky since coming into contact with fire will swiftly kill the protagonist. Unexpected happenings occur, with dangerous backdrafts that require a timely button press and scripted events like collapsing ceilings. Occasionally, Blaze expects a certain series of actions from players. If you don’t perform these precisely, prepare to repeat them until they are accomplished adequately. Once or twice, these activities felt overly fiddly, requiring repetition until you nailed every action expected from you. Remarkably, Blaze is at its best when it’s not tasking players with finding ways to open areas or turn on fire sprinkler systems. Battling flames that will reignite if not completely extinguished might be one of the more rewarding moments in the game if you can overlook saving helpless cats.

Conclusion

Although the inclusion of a New Game+ mode provides an incentive to play through Nuclear Blaze a second time, the game’s concise length might peeve some players. Even if you prefer concise campaigns, Blaze ends just as the action and intensity are truly heating up. In the end, I’d rather see a game conclude that descend into monotonous repetition, but there’s a chance you might feel the enjoyment gets extinguished too soon.

Nuclear Blaze was played on Switch with review code provided by the publisher.