Video Game / Rollerdrome

The world is watching in... ROLLERDROME.

"In the year 2030, a new bloodsport grips the globe. And in the arena, there will only be the victorious... and the dead."

—Announcer, State of Play 2022 Trailer

Rollerdrome is a 2022 Third-Person Shooter created by Roll7 (also behind OlliOlli World) and published by Private Division. It was released on August 16th, 2022 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Steam, with an Xbox Series X|S version due sometime in 2023.

The year is 2030. In a World… where corporations rule and the lines between reality and performance are blurred, the public are kept distracted by the violence and excess of a brutal new blood sport — Rollerdrome. Will you have what it takes to become the Rollerdrome champion and unravel the mysteries behind the Matterhorn corporation’s true intentions?

The end result of a divine pairing between Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Jet Set Radio (and some Sunset Overdrive for good measure), this game takes the best of both from a visual and gameplay standpoint, putting you up against some of the most challenging, but also rewarding score attack gameplay for a very unique experience.

Trailers: State of Play 2022 Reveal, Innovation Trailer, Cinematic Launch Trailer

Rollerdrome contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The game takes place in 2030, just eight years after its initial release.
• Action Girl: Plenty throughout the game, including your Player Character, Kara Hassan.
• Airborne Mook: Stompers. As the name implies, their signature attack has them deliver death from above in the form of a Ground Pound with a very wide damage radius. Fortunately, they can still be dealt with while they're airborne.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The Assists section in the Options menu takes this up to eleven, including, but not limited to —
    • Full-on invincibility, meaning you can never die.
    • Alternatively, if you feel like you'll bore too easily with invincibility, you can modify the damage Kara receives.
    • Unlimited Ammo and Reflex Time, which negates the need to do tricks to stay loaded.
    • Can't keep up with everything happening on the screen? Understandable; just lower the game speed to a level that best suits you.
    • Normally, meeting a certain quota of completed challenges is required to unlock the next level. You can bypass this by turning them off entirely.
    • Finally, for the Shotgun, in particular, you can enable a setting that makes it so you'll always be able to fire Slug Shots, which do more damage than normal shotgun rounds.
  • From a general standpoint, unlike in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, you don't have to worry about landing straight to maintain your combos, as Kara will automatically recover in place no matter the angle of your landing.
  • You don't necessarily have to aim at House players - simply hovering the reticle around them is enough to still land a hit. Even the Z-11, a weapon that requires precision, doesn't need too much work to aim with.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: Mecha Bruts. They're essentially tanks with legs, requiring liberal use of the Grenade Launcher to deal with them.
• Bullet Time: Used very extensively. And as well, you'll need it if you want to maintain your combo multiplier and nail those hard-to-reach mooks. Or if you're in the mood to show off.
• Cassette Futurism: The game was heavily influenced by dystopian Blood Sport films such as Rollerball and The Running Man, so it deliberately goes for the 70s aesthetic of those movies.
• Colossus Climb: Both of the game's main boss fights against the Spider-Tank entail this. You have to take out the House Players in the arena for it to lower its defenses, then once the shields are down, you climb up its back and shoot its weak points (either at the center of its back or behind it; only one or the other will be open for you to shoot).
• Crapsack World: Let's just say that when you have a Blood Sport that's as lethal and at the same time showy as Rollerdrome, there's bound to be plenty of protests and controversy surrounding it. Much of the flavor text and items throughout the game's Narrative (i.e., newspaper cutouts or official documents) don't do much to paint a pretty picture of the world outside of the sport.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The entire game in a nutshell. Hard as hell, but also fair. And once you get used to its learning curve and are able to gracefully chain together long strings of combo tokens, kills, and tricks (not in that particular order, but y'know), well... let's just say you'll have a hard time putting that controller down...
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Downplayed. The worst you get when you enable any of the Anti-Frustration Features mentioned above is your scores not being submitted to the game's online Leaderboards.
• Evil, Inc.: The Matterhorn Corporation, the hosts of the titular sport.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even if you don't beat Caspar's personal score according to the final stage's challenge list, you still win the championship over him upon defeating the final boss.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Or in this case, "Get Back Here!" Mook. Unless you're quick enough to unload your Dual Pistols on them, Polybeams will teleport to another part of the arena to continue their barrage of lasers on Kara.
• The Goomba: Grunts. They're the most basic enemy in the game to deal with, for they lack ranged attacks of any kind and can be easily dispatched with a single Slug Shot.
• Guns Akimbo: You start out with a pair of trusty pistols, which are very handy for racking up those combo strings.
• Grind Boots: Grind Skates - like the player character from Sunset Overdrive, Kara can grind across any flat edge throughout the various courses present in the game.
• Harder Than Hard: Out for Blood, which is a bonus campaign that takes place the following year. Compared to the base campaign, this one is much harder - all of your weapons are unlocked out of the gate, but you're also facing every type of House Player and they'll be considerably more damaging than they already were. And given that the game is difficult enough as it is, some tenacity (and probably a spare controller) may be required.
• Le Parkour: Now with rollerskating! And guns!
• "Just Frame" Bonus:
  • Dodging melee attacks or sniper shots at the right time also gives you a sizeable amount of ammunition back, provided you're quick enough. And if you happen to do a Perfect Dodge and then go into Reflex Mode, you'll get Super Reflex Mode, which significantly buffs your damage output on top of the improved dilation effect.
  • The Shotgun's Slug Shots function like this. Timed properly, they can take out most enemies in the game in a single shot or two.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Warheads, in spades. They'll be shooting missiles at you left and right, in case the Snipers didn't give you enough grief as it stands.
• Mook Chivalry: Yeah, you wish. One of the things that makes this game a challenging fun time is the same six enemies you'll be dealing with in just a single level, and the quantity thereof. Hell, by the final level in the normal game, you'll probably have taken out at least three Mecha Bruts, minimum, with several Warheads and Snipers up your ass on top of that.
• Nintendo Hard: The game starts out smoothly enough, with a decent tutorial that covers the basics and gives you an idea of what you'll go up against. Come the second level, however, and that's where the difficulty really starts to settle in. You'll either find yourself struggling to maintain a combo as you're finding the nearest rail to grind on, or you'll be getting hailed with a barrage of sniper fire. Either way, this game isn't for the faint of heart. Especially if you're a completionist.
• Pinball Projectile: The Z-11's other defining trait besides its long range and charged shot. If precision isn't exactly your forte, then you can just cheekily aim near or around your target and watch as the bullet gracefully flies off the floor or wall you shot it at and straight into any unfortunate House Player's head.
• Rule of Cool: Honestly, with all the shit you'll be pulling throughout this game (i.e., a 180 Coffin into blasting a House Player full of lead with your Dual Pistols), how can it not run on this? The soundtrack only exacerbates it further.
• Scoring Points: Not exactly the main focus (which is to just survive and kill every enemy to complete the stage; a certain amount of completed challenges required to unlock the next stage like in Pro Skater), but it sure helps in making the game as satisfying as it can be once you finally get past that steep learning curve.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Riot Guards. They also have the tendency to scatter bombs throughout the arena, though they can be easily dodged. The guards' shields themselves can also be easily dispatched with the Shotgun, leaving them wide open to be finished off with your trusty Dual Pistols.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The second weapon unlocked. It sacrifices fire rate and range for sheer power, making it very handy against heavier mooks.
• Shout-Out: The level names make reference to the more paranoid aspects of 1970s pop culture, such as Zabriskie Point and The Eiger Sanction.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • Matterhorn certainly has this mentality when it comes to everything they throw at their players, ranging from relentless missile barrages to goddamn tanks on legs.
  • Kara herself can do this to any tanky mook in the game by combining different weapons with each other (e.g., Slug Shot into Dual Pistols)... and this is before you're reminded that Super Reflex Mode (which doubles her damage output in addition to the increased time dilation) exists, by the way.
• Universal Ammunition: All four of your weapons share the same ammo pool a la Deus Ex: Invisible War or Borderlands, but they're very quickly refilled as long as you're either constantly grinding (literally) or pulling off unique tricks.
• Wall Run: Or wall ride, rather. Same idea, just executed differently. And a great way to fill up your ammo, too.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The Polybeams' defining trait. You fail to dodge in time and you'll be greeted by a big blue laser that decimates a good chunk of your health.
• Worldbuilding: Most of it during the Narrative portions of the game, where Kara explores some levels as she can interact with many of the objects around her that paint a not-so-pretty picture of life outside the titular sport.

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"Kara Hassan: Match Victory."

The season ended on a high tonight with a new champion, the rookie Kara Hassan...