I have no depth perception whatsoever, and yet I’m still able to perceive (and enjoy) Million Depth. That may be one of life’s greatest mysteries. Anyway, Million Depth is a post-apocalyptic, “deep diving” roguelike in which humanity has destroyed the surface of Earth. This has resulted in those who had the financial means escaping to space (hello, Mr. Curry), and everyone else burrowing deeper and deeper underground. As far as I can tell, that’s where Million Depth’s title comes into play: All the floors beneath Earth’s surface that humanity has dug out are collectively referred to as “the Million Depth.”

In Million Depth, you play as Moma, a young human girl who has spent all her life aboard her spaceship and, thus, has no idea what things are like on Earth. Moma needs to find someone whom she knows is somewhere on (or perhaps within) Earth, which means Moma will have to find out just how dire things are on Earth firsthand. You’ll help Moma descend into the Million Depth floor by floor until you’ve either found your quarry or died trying. You’ll frequently encounter enemies you’ll need to fend off, which brings me to Million Depth’s fascinating core gameplay loop.

Moma initially has one weapon that’s controlled with a mechanical ring that orbits around her. This ring both provides light so that Moma can see to navigate the Million Depth. It also allows her to control any weapons she builds. Moma also has access to a technology called the “biotope jammer,” which basically freezes time so that enemies (and the ranged attacks they fire) only move when you or one of your weapons move. By holding down left-click, you can have your currently selected weapon follow your mouse cursor. This lets you attack enemies who are out of your reach.

If there are enemies at ground level with you, Moma can tackle them to deal damage without using her weapons, provided that the enemy isn’t currently attacking. Notice that I said Moma built her weapons: As you traverse deeper into the Million Depth, you’ll frequently acquire blocks you can add to any weapons you have with you. Depending on which blocks you use and how you arrange them, you can make your armaments better at dealing damage or defending yourself against incoming attacks. Your weapons can block enemy ranged attacks, which can either reduce or entirely negate the damage you’ll take from them.

You can only adjust the arrangements of blocks that comprise your weapons at crafting stations or when interacting with certain merchants. You’ll find both of these things fairly often as you dive deeper. There’s no real form of currency used for trade in Million Depth. Instead, items in your inventory and merchants’ inventories are assigned a numerical value, and you’re expected to trade items so that both parties contribute equal values. Trades you offer can positively or negatively affect merchants’ attitudes, depending on how fair your offers are, which will lead to you getting better or worse deals from them.

Moma has a scanner that can (usually) tell her what awaits her on the floors below her current position within the Million Depth. You’ll typically be given the option to travel to either the left, the center, or the right. You can choose between these paths based on what your scanner says they contain. That’ll help you both search for increasingly valuable rewards and avoid things like environmental hazards and fights you’re not sure you can handle. You can only travel one floor at a time unless you use a consumable oxygen bottle, which lets you skip past one floor.

I really want to explain more about Million Depth’s story and its core gameplay loop, but I fear doing so would cause me to venture into spoiler territory. Instead, I guess all I can say is that a lot of time-travel-related shenanigans are at play within Million Depth, and Moma may know even less about herself and the state of the world than she initially expected. One major point in Million Depth’s favor is its multiple difficulty settings. These include a “story” difficulty if, like me, you don’t want overly challenging gameplay so you can focus on… well, the story.

Million Depth isn’t really the kind of game I would go out of my way to look for when I’m mindlessly browsing the Steam store in search of more games to toss onto my backlog, but that’s precisely why I’m glad I wound up with the opportunity to review Million Depth. I tend to enjoy games of this ilk well enough in general, but Million Depth adds fascinating twists to the usual roguelite formula that have really helped to draw me into it. If that, combined with the temporal tomfoolery I mentioned, has piqued your interest, I’d recommend checking out Million Depth.

A PC review key for Million Depth was provided by Playism for this review.

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Million Depth

$16.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Fascinating core gameplay loop.
• Interesting story and time manipulation mechanics.

Cons

• Gamepad support seems inconsistent at best.
• Core gameplay might present accessibility concerns.