Part 5 (Jul 2026) · #7 of 9 in that tierWatch the moment (2:50:12)
SULFUR
- Developed by
- Perfect Random
- Published by
- Perfect Random
$24.99
SULFUR is a modern old-school action-adventure: Outsmart enemies, find treasure, improve weapons, harness powers. Delve deeper, find answers, make it end.
Consensus
B73.9/100
Steam players87.6% positiveVery Positive10,487 reviews
VG Insights estimate ↗≈555K copies · ≈$8.7M gross
What creators say
What players say
A single-player first-person shooter from Swedish studio Perfect Random that blends a looter-shooter with a PvE extraction-style roguelite: you dive through biomes, loot, cook, craft and enchant guns, and lose everything you carry if you die before getting home.
SULFUR is received as a strong, distinctive Early Access hit: Steam shows Very Positive at roughly 87.6% of about 10,500 reviews, with the launch-period score around 90%. Players praise snappy, satisfying gunplay, the deep weapon modification and crafting systems, the lo-fi 3D-plus-2D-sprite art and soundtrack, and the tense lose-it-all risk/reward loop. The most vocal criticism in recent reviews is about balance philosophy: several big patches (oil and scroll rebalance, ammo caps, durability costs, removal of picture-in-picture scopes) nerfed popular builds and pushed the game toward a slower, more hardcore economy, which many see as a betrayal of the power fantasy. Critic coverage is very thin (Metacritic lists only two early-access critic reviews, so no Metascore), so reception is driven almost entirely by players. The game is still tagged Early Access on Steam with ongoing updates (Dungeons & Magic in Jan 2025, later Qiosk's Plenty and Scholar's updates, ghosts, endless mode) and console versions are advertised on the official site.
Players love
- Gunplay feels snappy and punchy, with distinct weapon handling, strong sound design and satisfying gore and enemy hit reactions
- Deep weapon-building: oils, scrolls, enchantments and attachments let you make oddball guns (homing magnum, near-instant LMG reloads, infinite-ammo style builds)
- High-stakes risk/reward: dying loses your whole loadout, and deciding when to use the recharge-limited teleport amulet creates constant push-your-luck tension
- Distinctive art style mixing 3D environments with 2D vector-style sprite enemies that have layered damage and vital areas
- Strong soundtrack, dry humour and a quirky lore without a heavy story burden
- Stash, storage and area unlocks give a sense of steady progression, and the hoarding/cooking/crafting side loops are addictive for many
- Flexible pacing: can be played as a slow, careful explorer or a fast bullet frenzy; an easy mode removes the death penalties
- Runs well, is good value around $25, and ships frequent updates (though some reviewers question the developers' balance direction)
Common complaints
- Major balance patches nerfed the most-used oils, scrolls and attachments (including rebalancing 100+ oils and adding an ammo cap), making many builds unviable, and changes apply retroactively to already-built guns
- Weapon durability drain per shot makes multi-projectile and heavily modded guns break quickly, forcing repair kits and discouraging experimentation
- Many scrolls and attachments are seen as strictly worse than an empty slot or are outclassed by a few best-in-slot picks, so build variety is narrower than it looks
- Repetitive level and enemy structure: several levels per biome feel alike and many enemies are faction reskins, with large rooms that trigger everything at once
- Enemy AI is considered easy to exploit and player power can outscale threats, while a handful of fast or cheesy enemies and bosses spike difficulty
- Endless mode scaling is criticised as unbalanced (enemy HP, size and damage scale while the player mostly scales HP), and reaching stage 20 takes hours for an achievement
- Some players feel it lacks a clear identity, doing neither roguelite meta-progression (stamps feel like minor QoL) nor extraction shooting as deeply as dedicated games
- Bugs and corruption worries have been reported, including save file issues, controller and Steam Deck quirks, and dialogue pacing bugs
Can feel tedious
- Grinding weapon ranks before you can fully mod a gun, made more costly by patches that stopped melee kills from awarding gun XP unless the gun hit the enemy first
- Re-running earlier areas to rebuild gear after dying in a late area, because all loot is lost on death
- Inventory hoarding and Tetris-style stash management, and the lack of an easy sort in earlier versions
- Ghosts added in a later update that can drain health, ammo and healing once they catch you, which some say wrecked atmosphere and difficulty curve
- Repeated same-feeling levels and the same few weapons used through an entire act, which drags out runs
- Annoying named threats called out repeatedly, such as forest birds, the castle boss that blinds and ignites you, and ambush dog packs
- Endless mode's stage-20 achievement takes roughly 4-8 hours in one session, which reviewers call a pointless time sink
What's unique
- Combines a looter-shooter and a PvE extraction loop in a single-player roguelite, with no classic meta-progression beyond what you stash and what you learn
- Hand-held teleport amulet you must charge at mid-run or pay for, and which you trigger manually, so you choose when to bail out
- Cooking, enchanting and oil-based gun modding form a crafting-heavy economy that players describe as an extraction cooking game with guns
- Weapon level-up by using the gun, with upgrade slots and powers that cost durability
- Insurance attachment that protects a single item, a rare and expensive hedge against the lose-everything rule
- Visual identity of flat, stylised 3D worlds with 2D sprite enemies, plus gory limb and organ looting
Players want
- Buff weak oils, scrolls and attachments instead of nerfing strong ones, so more builds are viable
- Add inventory sorting and the ability to suspend or save a run mid-dungeon (quick-sort was later added in the Dungeons & Magic update, suspend remained a request in reviews)
- Add character progression or more meta-progression beyond gear, since some players say only storage and items progress
- More biomes and late-game content, since players who beat the desert area reported running out of levels
- Tune endless mode scaling and remove the multi-hour achievement requirement
- Improve enemy AI and variety, and reduce the grind needed to re-gear after dying in later areas
- Restore picture-in-picture scopes or fix the underlying optimisation so scopes feel good again
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Early AccessAction RoguelikeFPSDungeon CrawlerRogue-liteSurvivalShooterDifficultAction RPGAction-Adventure
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Tier list Part 5 (2026)
Sulfur is a first-person extraction-shooter roguelike with 3D environments and 2D sprites, where gear is lost permanently if you die. He thinks it is probably the best game of its sub-genre, praising satisfying gunplay, deep gun customization and a large amount of content. Main complaints are a slow start, messy inventory management, repetitive corridor-to-room dungeons and a lack of stealth or special events. He places it in low A tier.
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