Reality Break Review

Reality Break (stylised as Reality/Break) is something special to its sole developer. Developed and published by Element Games, LLC (real name: Courtney), this sci-fi action RPG was a passion project that has been plaguing the dev for decades until its release on Steam, where it finally became a real game… several months ago, on the 11th of February 2025. God, that must be a good feeling. Coming from a game developer dropout, I’m a little envious. Now, you might be wondering: why are we getting to this game so late, months after its official release? It wasn’t buried in our emails or anything (at least I hope not).

Break Fate over your knee.

The answer was apparent from the extra code that was provided. It's a preview build of a free content update coming out soon: Reality Break Ascension. This is slightly awkward considering I’ve never played this game before, so I won’t know what has been changed or added, but hey! At least we’re getting into it now! Also, I really hope this review isn’t spoiling that it exists…

You are a pilot of a small fighter ship who has barely managed to escape a bad situation with your ship intact. For free repairs and a new slipdrive, they take a job to grab an artefact for a friend. However, upon coming in contact with this artefact — a Fate Core — it gives them the ability to Rewrite reality into whatever they want while embroiling them in a conflict that spans across timelines.

Me too, buddy.

I found the story well put together even with all the time travel shenanigans that occur throughout. Despite needing to go through the same scenarios several times, it never felt too samey, as there are randomised elements to keep things interesting. It helps that you can fast-forward through dialogue you’ve already seen before so you can get back to where you were a little quicker.

As for the graphics, I think it’s great. It’s colourful, selling the vastness of space and how dangerous it can be, with ship designs both recognisable at a glance while also being rather cool. They’re surprisingly detailed, too, despite how small they can be while on screen. Just look at the title menu, where the ship will change depending on what you have equipped.

Now, let’s get into the gameplay. Reality Break is your typical top-down space shooter, taking missions for story progress, resources, and new equipment. However, once you touch a Fate Core, everything changes, from your ship to your very destiny, as you are introduced to the Rewrite mechanic.

You like menus and loot?

You can Rewrite practically anything: From equipment to make them stronger, missions to make them harder and more rewarding, and even dialogue to skip over missions and avoid some bad endings. It also unlocks additional features, such as the ability to level up, execute powerful skills like slowing down time or tripling your firepower, and fire a giant laser powered by Fate itself. Yeah, things get pretty insane, but it’s all to its advantage.

The most unique aspect was how it approached its roguelite elements. If you die, that doesn't mean it is the end; Instead, you can “Break” that character, fracturing the timeline and creating a new cycle where your character won't die in an explosion. You’ll lose all your hard-earned loot and character levels, but it's better than making your death permanent. You also get a little stronger, because doing this earns Reality Points, which you can use to unlock bonuses and quality-of-life features for the next timeline.

Keep fighting Fate.

You also get bonus points depending on your actions, such as how many bonus missions you do or how long you last in the Chaos Vortex, where it will throw an endless amount of steadily more difficult enemies until you die. It's one last hurrah for your build before needing to start from scratch again, which I consider pretty nice. While you can always choose to go Into The Vortex at any time, even resist Fate if you aren't ready for a new cycle due to the story killing you, in Ironman Mode, dying prematurely will delete your character. No second chances.

Each cycle is a little different, more than just giving you random enemies and equipment. The story changes slightly with each subsequent repeat of the story; It just kept surprising me with each run I did. It actually didn't feel painful when I suddenly died in a cutscene; it just made me eager to start again. Every time I had to restart, I got through missions faster, ended up destroying ships with millions of HP in seconds, and grabbing better loot. Yeah, it gets a little annoying when you suddenly get wiped from existence by the Death Star, but it gets better with each reset and it often introduces a new mechanic each time it happens.

There's more to this.

Now, onto performance and… well, despite handily passing the recommended PC requirements, performance started to get worse and worse the further I went in a cycle, struggling to stay at a consistent 60 FPS. That’s because the game will throw heaps of enemies at you, blasting you with everything you can fire in space, and you’ll need to fire just as much back if you want to continue the timeline. It eventually became a neon-coated flustercluck that I can barely see or understand what’s happening, other than my framerate dropping to sub-15 FPS. It works perfectly when there isn’t as much stuff on screen, but when things get crazier, it also gets laggier, too. Other than that, aside from the occasional disappearing enemy, I didn’t encounter any glitches.

Ruh-roh.

I wish I had gotten Reality Break sooner, because I seriously loved its gameplay and constantly changing story. The core mechanic to Rewrite everything was executed wonderfully, and resetting back to the start never felt annoying. I just wish that I knew what the heck the Ascension update does and that my PC could handle the amount of lasers that show up on screen.