"Ledge-shoving fights that dazzle, then repeat themselves dry"
About
Dead Weight is a budget tactical roguelite set in a steampunk sky. You captain a flying pirate ship, drift between floating islands to scavenge loot, and drop into turn-based fights on cramped grids where the main trick is shoving enemies off ledges into the abyss below. Combat leans on positioning and terrain the way Into the Breach does, with counter-attacks and short skirmishes rather than long battles of attrition. You pick one of four characters, each with a distinct skill tree, and push through three acts while managing a fuel gauge for travel and a fatigue meter that limits how hard you can run. Between runs, divine gifts carry over as meta-progression and a tavern lets you patch up.
Verdict
Dead Weight nails the one thing it cares about: small-grid fights where nudging an enemy over the edge feels like solving a knot. The four characters and the art make the early hours a genuine pleasure at under eight euros. The problem is what comes after, once the enemy roster stops surprising you and the item pool runs dry somewhere around run fifteen. Add the murky onboarding and the odd CPU freeze and you get a game that shines briefly and clearly, then asks you to want more than it has.
You'll like it if …
- +you want Into the Breach's positioning puzzles in a shorter, cheaper package
- +you enjoy learning a fight until you can solve it cleanly
- +striking pixel art matters more to you than a deep story
You'll dislike it if …
- −you need a steady drip of new enemies and events to stay invested past 20 runs
- −unexplained systems and hidden tooltips frustrate you
- −you want a roguelite that carries a narrative alongside the fights
Breakdown
- +Terrain shoves off ledges make the tiny grids read like puzzles, and a clean kill feels earned rather than lucky
- +Losses land as your own fault, not the dice's, which keeps runs honest
- +Fuel and fatigue force real route and pacing decisions instead of endless drifting
- −The enemy roster repeats fast, so by a few runs in you already know how each fight resolves
- −No minibosses or curveball encounters to break the rhythm
- −Some builds tip toward dodging over attacking, which drains the fights of momentum
- −Fatigue reads as busywork to a chunk of players rather than meaningful tension
- +Four characters play differently enough that swapping one changes your whole approach
- +Skill trees and three-tier item upgrades give a run some shape
- −Most players see every item and event inside 10 to 20 runs, and the well runs dry after that
- −Meta-progression perks swing between broken and pointless, so the real choices narrow quickly
- −Players openly ask for more items and events, a sign the current pool is thin
- +The sky-pirate setting and the goddess Insead give the world a hook worth noticing
- −The story fades into the background within a few hours and leaves little to hold onto
- −Post-death dialogue is short and forgettable, and characters barely develop
- +Pixel art and character design draw the loudest praise, cohesive and genuinely striking
- +Soundtrack and audio sit pleasantly under the action
- −Some players hit hard CPU freezes
- −The Spanish translation is rough in places
- +The UI mostly works and menus are navigable
- −Fuel and fatigue arrive without a proper tutorial, and what carries over between runs is left unclear
- −Weapon and enemy details hide behind ctrl+mouseover instead of showing plainly
- −Invisible danger tiles cause deaths you couldn't have seen coming
- −The button to sail back to the city is buried in the drifting menu
score
