[REDACTED]

Developed by: Striking Distance Studios
Published by: KRAFTON, Inc.

Oct 27, 2024$24.99

Get ready to massacre monsters, race your rivals, and combat corpses of your fellow guards as you race to escape Black Iron Prison in the critically acclaimed roguelike, [REDACTED].

Consensus

C69.2/100

Steam players82.3% positiveVery Positive361 reviews

Metacritic ↗77/100Users: 7.9/10

VG Insights estimate ↗≈14.6K copies · ≈$250K gross

What creators say

PepperHead

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Part 3 (Apr 2025) · #8 of 17 in that tierWatch the moment (2:48:41)

Tier list Part 3 (2025)

Redacted is a content-rich, Hades-like action roguelike from the indie wave he has been showcasing. He already made a long deep-dive video on its design, so he keeps this quick. He thinks it looks great and feels like a full game, but has real design issues with its combat depth and roguelike elements. He places it high in B tier, partly because its grindy length kept him playing.

Liked

Looks great visually
Large amount of content, feels like a full-fledged game
Gameplay feels good at first
One of few Hades-likes with this much content
Long and grindy enough to keep him playing for a while

Disliked

Hard to combo things together easily as you play more
Roguelike elements are pretty disappointing
Rival system (NPCs racing to beat the run faster) keeps you on a clock and isn't to his taste
Quite a few design issues when examined closely
Gameplay is only okay overall

What players say

A fast, Hades-inspired action roguelike from Striking Distance Studios (The Callisto Protocol) where a low-ranking guard races rival survivors and infected inmates to the last escape pod out of Black Iron Prison.

Critics and players land in the same place: a confident, stylish, punchy Hades-like with a distinctive twist (rival survivors and a run clock), held back by grind, repetition and some design friction. Metacritic shows a 77 Metascore from 11 critics (9 positive, 2 mixed, 0 negative) and a 7.9 user score; Steam sits at Very Positive (about 82% of ~360 reviews). It launched Oct 27, 2024 on PC (Steam and Epic), PS5 and Xbox Series X as a full release, not early access, and Steam reviews show the game still being played and patched into 2026. Commercially it looks modest: a third-party Steam estimate puts gross revenue at only about $142k, though that tool is an order-of-magnitude guess and ignores console and Epic sales. The YouTuber whose ranking prompted this research put it in a fairly high B tier.

Players love

Combat feels smooth and punchy, with a mix of melee, gun and kick/push, and environmental hazards and destructible areas to exploit
The Rivals system (competing survivors racing you to the escape pod, who you can sabotage via prison systems) is called a fresh take on the genre by several critics and players
Strong comic-book / cel-shaded art style and dark humor that gives the Callisto Protocol universe a punk, arcade tone
Fast-paced soundtrack (Mark Mothersbaugh is credited by a Steam reviewer) that matches the pace of the action
Wide variety of suits, weapons and experiments to build around; specific weapons (e.g. broken bottles, shankers) are fan favorites
Good level design and pacing once the game clicks; after the first win, many difficulty modifiers add replay value
Plays well on Steam Deck and with a controller, per Steam reviewers
Fighting your own corpse from previous runs and the do-or-die final run are memorable ideas

Common complaints

Progression is very grindy: around six separate currencies, each unlocking one specific thing, and runs often yield only a handful of the one you need
The first roughly 8 hours are described as a slog because difficulty starts high and upgrades arrive slowly
Quick-time-event style button-combo minigames for attacking rivals get repetitive, often 10+ times per run (QTE can be turned off in settings)
Persistent bugs reported, including a long-standing screen-blocking bug that ruined a run late in the game, a locked-door exploit, and crashes entering a rare computer room
Difficulty scaling feels artificial to some, ramping as you play better rather than feeling earned
Very little synergy between upgrades: players say pure single-target damage is the only real strategy and status effects are not worth taking because key enemies are immune
Melee combat is considered weaker than the gun play by some critics, and level/room design gets repetitive
Epic Games version reportedly has support problems, e.g. achievement sync and a broken launcher screen
Constant choice between a temporary upgrade and currency for permanent unlocks: taking the currency leaves you underpowered and dying fast

Can feel tedious

Multi-currency grind and slow unlocks, especially early
Repeated button-combo minigames to hit or hinder rivals
The end-game reset: failing the final do-or-die run wipes unlocks, which several Steam reviewers call the worst design choice (others later came to like it)
Bosses and rooms that throw a lot of stuff at you and feel unfair or badly designed to some users
Keeping track of several rivals while fighting hordes under a time limit feels stressful and cluttered

What's unique

Rival survivors race you to the single escape pod and you can attack them remotely through the prison's systems during the run
You fight the corpse of your previous self / fallen guards, tying death into the loop
Runs are on a clock, so speed matters more than in most Hades-style games; a top Steam review describes it as Hades on speed
Final-run gimmick: after clearing objectives, a high-stakes do-or-die run can wipe your unlock progression if you fail
Twin-stick shooter plus melee blend in the Callisto Protocol sci-fi prison setting with a punk graphic-novel look

Players want

Add in-game health bar / clearer health readout and a slot or list view of boons and which are mutually exclusive
Allow full controller button remapping (asked for on Steam discussions and in reviews)
Better explain the multiple currencies and accessibility options such as Guard Mode, and reduce the currency bottlenecks
Make the rival system less punishing early on; some players asked for an option to remove the rival entirely
Fix the recurring screen-blocking and softlock bugs, and improve Epic version support
Broaden build variety and synergies so non-damage upgrades matter; critics also wanted more variety in rooms and enemies

Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.