DeathSprint 66 Review (PC) – Great Potential but Too Hardcore for Its Own Good

High-difficulty purists will praise the game, and I completely understand why. But I couldn't find one good reason to continue after just a few hours in. Again, DeathSprint 66 is not a bad game mechanically, but it does suffer from what I would call an unfortunate game design decision.

DeathSprint 66 is Mario Kart meets Ghostrunner. It looks great, and it's mechanically sound. Aside from the stubborn hardcore difficulty, I couldn't find any serious faults with Sumo Digital's title.

The game features an 8-player PvP mode and PvE, where you run, boost, jump, drift, wall-run, and grind through various tracks. Some maps require you to run through checkpoints before the time expires. Others ditch the time gameplay mechanic and instead award you three or five lives.

Some tracks are filled with traps that will pulverize you to smithereens if you don't pay attention. The only way to learn the ropes is to die and repeat tens of times. It's skill-based, so memory and reflexes are all that matter.

The rules are extremely simple to learn, especially after the well-made initial tutorial. Afterward, everything depends on your willingness to stick with the immense difficulty, and this is where the issues began for me.

I'm not one to shy away from a difficult game. Ever since I was six and first got my hands on Super Mario Bros. on the NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System, I was instantly hooked. Growing up, I had my fair share of titles like Tetris, Contra, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, and so on. Playing them is how I learned to welcome a challenge.

In my teens and twenties, Souls impacted me terribly. I loved each "From Software" title to bits and even got seven tattoos representing my affection for Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and especially Elden Ring. So when I say a game is too difficult for its own good, I'm not just saying it to stroke my unhinged journalistic ego and get a few clicks.

I am perfectly familiar with video game difficulty mechanics and praise them to the High Heavens when there's a case for it. But when an experience is completely unforgiving and has a learning curb 90 degrees steep, I put down the controller after a few hours and walk away forever.

I'm pushing 35 and holding down two jobs, so "ain't nobody got time for that" anymore. Gameplay-wise, DeathSprint 66 is a great title. It knows what it wants and shamelessly goes for your throat. But in today's gaming landscape, who has two hours to spend just to finish one track when you can play and relax in Fortnite or "go touch some grass," as the younglings say?

As I've said, mechanically, everything works, and nothing was broken during my experience. Well, maybe, aside from a few crashes when I initially launched it, but that's most likely because I have the issue-riddled Intel i9-13900k processor.

But in-game, each button press felt as responsive as it should, and the animations were spot on. I also couldn't find major faults with the graphics, aside from the performance side of things. The art design looks like an Unreal Engine demo template, but that's subjective.

PC Performance

My rig boasts an Nvidia RTX 4080, and with everything on Ultra 4K (no DLSS), I barely got over an average of 40 fps. However, I switched to Medium, still with no DLSS, and that framerate doubled. On Ultra with DLSS on Quality, I managed to sustain 80-90 fps, depending on what was happening. Technically, I didn't have any issues with DeathSprint.

The bipedal arcade racer costs $25 with a 10% discount at launch and is only available on Steam. The minimum requirements are an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, AMD Radeon RX 5700, or Intel Arc A580 GPU. The recommended specs are at least an Intel Core i7-10700k or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X coupled with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, or Intel Arc A770 graphics card.

Hardcore to the Max!

The purpose of a difficult game is to walk the fine line between frustrating and unfair. When the experience leans towards the latter, the player stops enjoying the challenge. The brain starts sending signals that it wants to stop playing or try something else to compensate for the negative emotions.

DeathSprint 66 isn't what I would call unfair, but it has no game mechanics that ease the pressure. At least, I was unable to find any. It's either "Over 9000!" or nothing at all. Robbing players of choice and forcing their hands to spend countless hours "Gettin' Gud" when there are so many other distractions to choose from, especially free ones, doesn't make sense to me in 2024.

I completely understand the 11/10 difficulty settings, but instead of it being a knob or a dial, it's an On/Off button. You either love it or not. I wholeheartedly respect developer Sumo Digital's decision to create an ultra-hardcore game for the mythical elite player.

However, it's not the Game Cube or PS2 era anymore, where you squeezed the life out of one game because you were 10 years old and had nothing better to do. With smartphones, entertainment is everywhere, and every company is competing for your money and time, from Netflix-style streaming services to gaming subscriptions like Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.

In the long run, ultra-hardcore games like DeathSprint 66 will always get trumped by kinder experiences unless they have something really special, like Super Meat Boy or Celeste.

The solution for this kind of issue is already here, and it's nothing complicated. The devs don't even have to put in the traditional Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels. Monster Jam and Rollerdrome feature a game time slider where you manipulate how time flows.

This method is perfect if you don't have lightning-fast reflexes to dodge, sprint, drift, and jump 100 times per second. Leave the hardest difficulty for the most passionate gamers, but also accommodate potential new players or customers. At the end of the day, it's a product intended to produce money. If it fails, it can be devastating to everyone involved in making it, from the studio to the publisher.

Conclusion

My opinion remains unchanged: DeathSprint 66 is too hardcore for its own sake. While the team's talent is undeniable, the problem isn't mechanical, graphical, or technical. But stubborn game design risks to alienate everyone but the most diehard gamers.

RATING 60/100