Meet Your Maker

After a horrific pandemic wipes out almost the entire population of the planet, you wake up in a control tower in the middle of a barren desert landscape. The unpleasant sound of sand grains scratching against the building's windows is loud as the sandstorm rages on. You take on the role of The Custodian - a guardian - who is tasked with rebuilding the earth's population. You do this by collecting DNA that has not been damaged by the pandemic. You take orders from a creature floating in a glass container, connected to several wires and tubes. The creature orders you to save the world by going on a raid and killing cyborg mutants that prevent you from getting the DNA. Yes, it sounds completely insane and bizarre. But it kind of works.

Apart from this setup, the plot is more or less unimportant. The game's narrative takes up surprisingly little space, and that is not what Behavior Interactive has chosen to focus on. Which, on the surface, is perfectly alright. The plot merely serves as a mood marker for the game's aesthetics and gameplay. It is in these two respects that the game really gets to spread its wings. The aesthetic is straight out of the Warhammer 40,000 and DOOM universes respectively. A raw and mechanical sci-fi style that mixes industry with gore. The environment looks like a construction site from hell, and all the walls of the buildings are covered in either engine oil or blood. The line between man and machine is blurred in Meet Your Maker, which produces a perverse and disgusting blend of the corporeal and the mechanical. Sparks from heavy metal being welded are mistaken for blood and guts in a beautiful homage to the so-called grimdark aesthetic.

The perversion is particularly evident in the character design of the various enemies you fight. Humans, utterly mangled by wires, steel and lamps, are sharply contrasted with their sickly pale and inflamed skin. The merging of man and machine is also seen in the environment, where skulls are woven into the wiring of the ceiling and walls. It's a rather funny detail, reminiscent of Pirates of the Carribiean, where Bootstrap Bill blends in with the wall of the Flying Dutchman.

These details are examples of how great an artistic vision Meet Your Maker has. The game has a recognizable style that takes inspiration from other well-known IPs, but still manages to stand on its own.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the gameplay, which also borrows elements from a multitude of different genres and games. Meet Your Maker consists mainly of two branches - FPS games and construction games. First, you go out and explore paths created by other players to return to the control tower with resources that your character can use to level up. Next, you create paths of your own for other players to explore. This gameplay loop is initially alluring and interesting, but unfortunately loses its appeal after a few hours. It must be said that Behaviour Interactive succeeded in part in delivering an interesting FPS game, but it unfortunately only lasts for a few hours before the game is reduced to a repetitive to-do list.

Besides shooting and building - which make up the main gameplay - Meet Your Maker also functions as a dungeon crawler, rogue-like, platformer and puzzle game. It's clear to see that the game is inspired by the likes of DOOM, Portal, and Minecraft, but doesn't quite manage to stand out as its own. It unfortunately ends up depending too much on a gimmick. Although the game has deliberately chosen not to focus on narrative, a strong story might have maintained the player's interest for longer.

The first few hours of Meet Your Maker are interesting, fun and challenging, but after a while the magic that draws you in to begin with disappears.