One Of The Coolest Games You Have Never Played In 2025

From the creators of the stylish Ruiner comes their next sci-fi action pumping adrenaline rush, Metal Eden.

We play as Aska, a Hyper advanced android, who is a virtually indestructible cybernetic runner hunting the engineers on a suicide mission in hopes to rescue the citizen’s core from Moebius. The underbelly city where no one goes to survive, expect us! A Hyper can die, but Aska will always be reconstructed back together for her next run to save the ticking time bomb within Moebius.

The underbelly city features different biomes to change the linear path along which we travel the world. The level design is clean, but rather repetitive in scope. We are able to change our travels by going head down into a roller ball, however, it doesn’t have any significant gameplay challenges. Sometimes we’ll have to transform to be able to jump from one location to the next or fire missiles from our rolling form to eliminate a few enemies. It's a small gameplay mechanic that is supposed to help mix up the moment-to-moment gunplay and the platforming area's with its waves of enemies. However, it falls slightly short.

Popping Heads

There is something very special about Metal Eden’s combat. Its fast pace, fluid movement with a punch that features a wide variety of upgradable guns were incredibly satisfying. The gunplay was a thrill ride that would have me spraying down anything that moved in the arena-style waves of enemies. Sound familiar? With its heavy inspiration from Doom-style gameplay, Metal Eden will satisfy your gun glory pleasure of bloodshed.

With its frantic gunplay and an indecisive story, I would have liked to have had a more flushed-out storyline. Though the story was well voice acted, with narrator Keith Silverstein as Nexus, it left holes and misunderstandings about its venture. The story helps push the gameplay along, but the real star of the game is its high-action gunplay.

The Hook

Reikon Games shifts from a top-down isometric cyberpunk hit with Ruiner, to a new first-person perspective shooter that brings the rush of Doom’s high-speed killing machine with a mix of Titanfall’s fluid parkour. It’s an absolute adrenaline rush and a dream come true when mixing these legendary games together. That is incredibly rewarding. Combining these two gameplay styles with each other is the hook! It’s what kept me coming back for more action. How fast can you kill everything while leaping around the environment? Let’s find out!

With good gameplay must come the power: GUNS! We’re issued a standard submachine gun with an infinite amount of ammo. It’s always something to fall back on. However, an overclock heat meter does prevent us from endlessly spraying on all cylinders. The ENZ-5, a go to for me that shreds enemy armor, opening them up to remove their core, which will allow you to become stronger with a melee smack down. Which, when upgrading, the ENZ-5 will also feature a grenade launcher that nearly vaporizes the enemies in front of our eyes. Or toss a grenade that freezes them in place with shattering results. It’s the fast-paced action I fell in love with when it came to Metal Eden.

But Why the Waves?

As much as the action is hard hitting, it’s the structure in which it plays out that will leave you desiring more from the team at Reikon. Waves of enemies in a locked away arena feels dated. Though it's not always the case throughout each part of the level mission, the arena style is their main way to fight off everything coming at you. Bringing us back to a rinse and repeat gameplay scenario.

One can’t help but wonder if there is an opportunity for a sequel. Allowing the team to build upon what they’ve learned from Metal Eden and take it to level 11. Given the opportunity, it could allow them to truly flesh out a less confusing story, a more comprehensive level design system that would allow for more exploration instead of a very limited linear path.

Metal Eden doesn’t overstay its welcome. Not every game needs to be 20 or 30 hours long. I’d rather play a tight-knit, shorter experience than have a game that overstays it's welcome because the team feels like they would need to pad on content and have the players stay longer. You can quickly wrap up Metal Eden in 7–8 hours and if you’re looking for a tougher challenge, jump right back in with New Game Plus at a higher difficulty. The option is there for more gametime. But not padded on, thankfully.

Metal Eden may fall a bit short in some of the wonders and mystery of the game with its underdeveloped storyline. However, the hard-hitting, pixel-perfect gunplay with razor-sharp movement and generous upgrades, makes for one terrifying and unstoppable Hyper unit that will crush through the endless waves of enemy onslaught heading your way in Moebius.