Airlock Arena: Profit or Perish

Airlock Arena: Profit or Perish is a top-down co-op roguelike shooter developed and published by Mason Norvell and John Norvell of Frostbane Studios.

- By Dylan Pamintuan

In this game, you will play as a space smuggler who has everything to lose or gain, trying to make their mark on the galaxy and become a mega-rich legend. You (and up to three other friends) will be taking contracts to steal cargo, rescue people, and transport all your spoils to be sold. However, don't expect the life of a smuggler to be an easy one as your reputation grows and you get the attention of the authorities.

You have quite a few tools to help you in your dubious space escapades, which are all explained in a pretty decent tutorial. You can grapple to grab cargo from a distance or pull yourself towards something, boost for a faster walking speed and to move around in space, shoot to kill enemies and destroy walls, slash with a laser blade to kill without collateral and block lasers, and repair to fix anything you break. You will need to take advantage of all of these in order to survive the _harsh trials you'll encounter and make it out with a decent profit. That being said, the controls can feel sluggish at times, which is bad for a game like Airlock Arena, which requires fast movements and quick reactions. Also, a controller is a must for this game.