Double Fine’s RAD Is Actually Pretty Rad

RAD is shaping up to be a dang fun post-post-apocalyptic treat this Summer.

Rad game

One of the announcements that flew a little under the radar after being revealed during the recent Nindies showcase is RAD from Double Fine: a post-post-apocalyptic roguelike that’s big on neon and eighties attitude. As a game seemingly designed in a lab to appeal to my pseudo-hip ass, I was intrigued to take it on during EGX Rezzed 2019.

The most immediately notable thing about RAD is its style, which oozes VHS charm in abundance while not trying too hard to be cool. You are given the option of choosing between several young teenagers (Stranger Things really has been very inspirational, huh) who can all mutate in the toxic wasteland known as the Fallow.

“Playing as a teenage protagonist, you must venture into the Fallow — an ever-changing, radioactive wasteland filled with unknown and unspeakable creatures. It is here that you will find the solution to heal the world, and transform the cracked, barren landscape into a lush source of new life.”

These mutations appeared in short time for me as sprouted a pair of wings to help me navigate in about five minutes after investigating an underground facility. I’m not sure whether everyone gets this by default early on or not, but it seems like RAD will allow player great experimentation in just how messed up and superpowered they want to become. Promotional materials show the main character with a flaming skull, Groot legs, and the aforementioned wings to name a few, so it will be interesting to see just how many mutations there are and how vital they will be for progression.

The game’s synopsis on Steam does suggest that more mutations will mean more complications, though it was hard to figure out what that means from a short and limited demo:

“But humanity’s future comes at great personal cost, as the deeper you journey into unknown lands, the more you will expose yourself to gnarly toxins which will wreak havoc on your fragile human form.”

Combat itself is about as simple as you could ever want combat in a twin-stick action game to be: swing your bat and kill the things. There’s straightforward satisfaction to be had in this, though I’d expect it would evolve as the game progresses with gnarlier and gnarlier mutations. Likewise, while my run was fairly straightforward and I only ended up dying because I forgot to heal, the roguelike nature of RAD promises that you can never get too complacent.

RAD is pretty aggressively eighties with its style, but like most modern roguelikes, its unique gameplay twists keep it feeling contemporary and quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. With a soothingly post-apocalyptic purple palette, synth beats worth nodding along to, and more mutations than Nightcrawler taking a bath in Chernobyl, RAD will be worth looking at when it launches sometime this Summer for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

You can sign up for the RAD closed beta on Steam here.

Check out the rest of our Rezzed 2019 coverage here.

Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.

Editor-in-Chief