Cygni: All Guns Blazing review – a thoughtful rejection of the arcade shooting rulebook
KeelWork’s strikingly opulent shooter dares to do new things with its genre in an effort to unite players of every level. This is what a blockbuster shooter should look like.
Arcade shooting games are, in truth, about fragility. Despite their reputation as gaming’s most furious, excessive form, they almost universally place you at the controls of a weaponised weakling; a vessel that disintegrates after the briefest contact with a single enemy bullet.
Cygni: All Guns Blazing reviewDeveloper: KeelWorksPublisher: KonamiPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out now on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PS5, and Xbox Series X/S
That’s not the case with Cygni: All Guns Blazing, a new shooter that insists it’s OK to take dozens of enemy hits and stay in the game. That might sound like a reckless inversion of what makes the genre so special and rewarding. However, Scottish developer KeelWorks appears to have been meticulous in its subtle revolution of what a shooting game can be – and who it can serve. There’s even an argument to be made that Cygni proposes a vision of what a blockbuster shooter could be; namely staggeringly polished, technically muscular, and able to welcome and impress a vast mainstream audience.
Cygni is delightful, dazzling – and likely divisive. Embark on your first jaunt through the main campaign mode and you’ll find it unusually stuffed with cutscenes. Big, cinematic, detailed cutscenes that bring a thundering energy to the game compared to the brief animated intros or trad arcade attract screens most shooters tend to stick to, but their quality helps Cygni assert its blockbuster aspirations and appeal. They’re also, thankfully, entirely skippable – something critically important in a genre that goads replays from its fans.
CYGNI: All Guns Blazing – Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube
Fortunately, the quality of these interstitial scenes extends to the main game, too. As you first swoop over the opening level, you get to peer into a city so bristling with detail it feels every part a living place. And from that moment forward, everything from the backdrops to the enemy design, soundscape and explosion effects is meticulously well-realised, powerfully establishing the tone of a desperate battle as society is overwhelmed and stretched thin by the arrival of war. The detail is so evocative, in fact, it’s like looking over a real-life diorama scene. As you dance with your rivals high in the heavens, you’ll even see swarms of tiny footsoldiers and vehicles below going to war with equally diminutive alien invaders.
