Do screeching doughnuts and mow enemies down with saw blades in Driveloop: Survivors

Driveloop: Survivors is another attempt to blend the survivor-like bullet heaven whatchamacallit genre made popular by Vampire Survivors with vehicles. It's out now in Early Access so I took it for a spin. Disclosure: key provided for me.

The problem they have, like every other coming along doing this, is how are they actually setting themselves apart? I wanted to find out, since I do love the genre and how easy it is to get into and have a blast when you don't have a whole lot of time. And I just love building up a character full of ridiculous weapons or powers, or this case, a vehicle.

I've played through Pest Apocalypse which had the really frantic and fun delivery side to it, and Earl vs. the Mutants which was pretty good but not particularly filled with content. At least with Driveloop: Survivors, it already seems like it nicely hits the mark.

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One bit that sets it apart is that it's arenas are supposed to be inspired by a post-apocalypse take on real locations, not that you'll be paying much attention to that while kicking up dust and mowing down various enemies.

I must admit that doing doughnuts with saw blades poking out of each side of my vehicle, while a rotating laser and machine gun turret blow enemies away, along with fire blowing out the back of the vehicle was thoroughly satisfying. Plus, on top of the per-level weapons and upgrades, during a run you also rescue extra crew for your vehicle to get extras, that feels a bit like the rescue system in the pretty popular Yet Another Zombie Survivors.

Getting random events thrown in is a nice touch too, giving you more ways to earn extras. The first one I saw was a good one too, getting you to drive through a bunch of way-points as quickly as possible making it suddenly feel like a crazy racing game.

The developers of this one at least seem to understand what made Vampire Survivors popular — how ridiculous it gets when you're fully upgraded. You just get to unleash total chaos.

No issues at all on Desktop Linux with Proton 9.0-4.

For the Steam Deck, even on the Low graphics setting once it gets going the performance keeps it quite a bit below 30FPS and doesn't feel great so right now it's going to need optimisations before recommending there. One mark against it as well is that it does not currently support Steam Cloud so your saves are per-device.

Highlights:

• Experience an irresistible blend of relentless survivor-like action and strategic top-down twin-stick shooting.
• Pilot stylish combat cars with a slew of customisation options and unique skill trees to progress through.
• Explore decimated versions of Paris and Berlin, with more locations to come post-launch, on a world tour of wreckage!
• Unleash a wild arsenal of weapons and special abilities on the robot hordes, and recruit crew members to add another edge to your combat car's killing capabilities!
• Used earned currency to pimp your ride, equip some seriously stylish customisation options, or opt for run-altering abilities!
• Crank up the difficulty with multiple levels and gameplay modifiers – bigger risks, bigger payouts!