TerraTech Legion Review

Welcome to TerraTech Legion, a bullet hell – sorry, bullet heaven – action roguelike game that has you fighting off waves of enemies using the vehicle that you built and designed yourself, using the blocks you picked up while playing. AI bots are travelling across the galaxy, destroying everything that gets in their way. You play as a tech jockey with no sense of fear, who wants to obliterate these bots by building a vehicle strong enough to smash them into scrap.

Developed by Payload Studios and published by Mythwright, TerraTech Legion feels like you are building a LEGO® vehicle during a round of Vampire Survivors. This may sound odd, but it is a pretty accurate description of what is happening here. The fact that you get to create your vehicle with a selection of 200 different parts means that every run can be very different, depending on the pieces that you choose to use.

There are two modes to play, Story or Survive Mode, where you are trying to get the high score, but the second is locked at the beginning. There are other things to view here, like contracts that you have completed, such as Smash ‘N’ Grab, where you need to destroy 100 structures; Never Surrender, where you need to lose 10 times; or Graduation, which is awarded when you reach Level 18 during your run. You receive a reward for each achievement that you complete. There is also the Blockpedia, where all the blocks (parts) that you have seen on your runs and others that you have completed the required assignment to unlock are listed. In total, there are 208 to discover!

When you begin the story mode, there are four pilots shown, with only one unlocked at the beginning. Mikela is a Pathfinder 1st Class whose signature ability is extra rerolls, giving an extra reroll for each level, and her Signature Boost is a stun boost that stuns enemies that you smash into. There is an ultimate boost, but that is locked until you reach Tier II. The vehicle she drives is the Ranger 1.

The first stage is the Dust Bowl, which is ranked at Threat Level I. Your main task is to drive your vehicle around, dodging all the incoming foes and destroying them. Don’t worry about manually shooting at the enemies, as the guns you have installed on the vehicle fire automatically. Some of the enemies you encounter are pulling boxes behind them; these are Block Crates that give you power-ups like the Nitronix Injector, which gives +20% Boost Power; the Go Juice Tank, which increases your Boost Duration by 20%; or the Tetrox Booster Jet, which improves both your Boost Power and Duration by 10%. If you don’t like the options shown, you are able to reroll to try again.

There are also Weapon Crates to upgrade your shooting power. The cool thing is that you can place the guns wherever you want on your vehicle to maximise the amount of firepower you have. You can get machine guns, missile launchers, and even a plough to attach to the front of your vehicle to push your foes around like a pile of snow. It is so much fun to create your own death machine.

Blocks can only be installed by going into glowing circles found in stages. Vehicles have a different number of slots available for upgrades, with the Ranger 1 having 15. When you are trying to figure out where you want to install the parts, there will be a blue outline when the spot works; if it is red, then it’s a no-go, and you can’t put it there, so it will fit somewhere else.

After placing a bunch of these weapons and upgrades, your vehicle might look super cool or more Frankenstein-style, with parts sticking up all over. All I care about is having something that can deal loads of damage! The onslaught of enemies is relentless, so you really don’t get much of a breather until you get to the building phase. Here, you can take as much time as you need to customise your ride before you are thrown back into the battle.

Run out of health and get destroyed, and the mission is over, but you are shown which contracts were completed, along with stats on how long the run was, how many enemies were taken out, and which level you reached, and the upgrades that you acquired. You can also see the stats for each of the weapons on the vehicle and see which ones did the most damage. This is useful information for the next run, so you know which ones are the most useful to pick next time.

The visuals are good; there are a huge number of enemies swarming you, reminiscent of other roguelike shoot 'em ups. Some are tiny and can easily be taken out, while others are larger and require more shots to be destroyed. Defeated enemies drop scrap that you collect to level up. The music is upbeat, matching the non-stop action you encounter on the stage very well.

Controlling your vehicle takes a bit of time to get used to; there is a button for acceleration, boost when you need a bit of speed to get away from the enemy, and reverse. Steering with the thumbstick felt a little tricky; it was hard to get the vehicle to move in the direction I wanted to go. If you go into the settings menu, you can see the control scheme for when you are in Battle or in Building mode. Here, you are also able to change the control mode to swap between the Driving and Push to Go settings. Once I switched the mode to Push to Go, I found it a lot easier to control where I was going, since pushing up meant I was moving up on the screen.

TerraTech Legion is an easy title to recommend, especially if you like challenging games full of action, like Vampire Survivors. It is incredibly satisfying to build your own vehicle and place the upgrades exactly where you want them. This also lets you prioritise whether having more firepower matters most to you, or if you want to make the machine stronger by increasing health and shields. The game is super addictive and worth trying out for yourself!