Developer 34BigThings brings players back into the Redout universe with Redout: Space Assault, but where the first game focused on high-speed F-Zero style racing, this entry instead aims to be a Star Fox-inspired space shooter. Players take control of a combat pilot as they hop around the galaxy taking out pirates, rebels, and corrupt corporations. On the surface Redout: Space Assault looks, sounds, and handles terrifically, but its shiny exterior fails to cover up the fact that it is ultimately a boring and repetitive on-rails shooter.
Redout: Space Assault is set a few years before the first Redout game and it tells the story of a talented pilot named Leon who works for a company called Poseidon Corp. Leon's mission is to help protect the space surrounding the company's base on Mars from the threat of space pirates and rebel groups. It is a basic and pretty unoriginal story, and most players will probably see its twists coming from miles away. Ultimately this isn't that big of a deal since the story is just an excuse for the player to blow things up.
Most of the missions in Redout: Space Assault stick the player on rails with the ability to move left, right, up, and down to dodge projectiles and debris, but other than that they must stick to the path laid out. The game will throw all manner of different enemy types at the player that must be taken down using either the ship's automated cannons or lock-on missiles. Redout gradually increases in difficulty as the first few stages have low level enemies to dispatch, whereas the latter levels feel almost more akin to a bullet hell shooter with the amount of enemies and missiles on screen.
These on-rails stages can be a lot of fun at first, but things quickly become stale and repetitive. At a cursory glance the enemies look varied and interesting, but upon further inspection there are really only two types of enemies in the game: fast moving bullet-shooters and stationary missile launchers. The environments are gorgeous to look at, but after the first chapter Redout: Space Assault just starts reusing some of the same backgrounds and routes. All of this is further exacerbated by the fact that the player ship seems to move through the world in slow motion, and weapons just never seem to pack the punch that they should even when fully leveled up.
There are two other types of levels in Redout: Space Assault, but they fare even worse than the on-rails portions of the game. There are several levels throughout the game that the player is open to explore freely off-rails, but there is little to do in this mission type. Most of it boils down to flying around in empty space, avoiding asteroids, and trying to find tiny beacon signals to complete the level. The worst level type in Redout: Space Assault is surprisingly its racing missions. Considering the fact that the first Redout game was a solid racing title it stands to reason that this would be a strong aspect of Space Assault. However the controls aren't well suited to this, so racing levels usually just become a trial in patience more than anything else.
Despite these issues, Redout: Space Assault is a very well-polished game. The world design itself is pretty phenomenal with all of the lights and colors flashing onscreen creating a very visually pleasing experience. The look of ships, planets, asteroids, and even explosions all look terrific. During the on-rails portions the game also handles extremely well, and there are some accessibility options like auto-firing that help make things more manageable during the harder parts.
The original Redout may not have been the best racing game out there, but it did have a lot of heart and felt like a continuation of the long dormant F-Zero franchise. Redout: Space Assault on the other hand tries to enter a well-worn genre but provides nothing new or interesting to keep players engaged. Those who were looking for the next Star Fox will be better suited looking somewhere other than Redout: Space Assault, but it's a playable entry into a genre that plenty of invested fans are constantly looking for more titles in, so it's still got a place among diehard players.
Redout: Space Assault can be played on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A PlayStation 4 code was provided for the purposes of this review.