What The STRUCK is Death Trash?

(a post-apocalyptic isometric 2D action RPG that is fun as it is weird: MEAT, guns, melee, mutants, a cult, a FLESHKRAKEN, PUKE, it’s got it all)

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Death Trash is a post-apocalyptic Action RPG where cosmic horrors crave humanity but meet punks with shotguns. It combines old-school role-playing, modern action gameplay and player freedom. Create your own character and explore a handcrafted world. It’s got fast-paced combat, a decent amount of build diversity, pleasantly disgusting visuals to match the game’s setting, and an enthusiastic dev team committed to making the game better.

Video Version:

The Story:

Without spoiling or revealing too much: Humans traveled to the stars and some of them settled on the planet Nexus with its ancient secrets of stone and flesh. But secrets were unearthed, and the civilized people had to flee into enclosed habitats. The wasteland is reigned now by outcasts, controlling machines, and offsprings of the worm.

You are one of the outcasts, pushed outside with a dangerous burden to carry, and your path will take you through deserts, ruins, the underground, and beyond.

Combat:

The game’s combat is pretty fun. You have the combination of physical dodge rolls + melee and ranged combat that you can use at any time. For ranged you’ll have to aim before shooting whereas with melee you just press the attack button. Ranged enemies’ aims can be seen to help you with the timing of your dodge rolls and some of the enemies have specific attack patterns that can be learned to help you out. Players can also utilize a stealth ability & mechanic + 1 choice from a series of other abilities to help spice up the combat.

The World & Map:

The world of Death Trash has a distinguishing post-apocalyptic feel and you will see solid attention to detail. The map in Early Access if pretty big (on my screenshot below I’ve only revealed a small part of it, maybe 1/3 of early the access map). On the screenshot below you also see Steel Waste, which is one of the zones that cannot be reached/explored during early access so there will be an increase to the explorable areas before the game is ready. From the look of it the current map is around 60% of the total planned for release map.

As you traverse this map from one point of interest to another there may be random encounters with enemies or non-hostile NPCs. Some will be avoidable if one is cautious while others may be hard to avoid.

Character – Stats & Skills:

There are 2 categories of “passive” character development: Stats & Skills. Players get 1 Stat & 2 Skill Points for each levelup. When creating your character you also start with 5 Stat & 5 Skill points to spend and you can not put more than 2 into either stat at the beginning until you’ve reached a certain level threshold.

Stats:

The 6 Stats we can invest into are:

• Hardiness – Increases your HP & Resistances + it’s a requirement for some chest armors.
• Strength – Increases your melee damage & melee crit chance + it’s a requirement for some melee weapons.
• Finesse – Increases your ranged damage & rangedcrit chance + it’s a requirement for some ranged weapons.
• Occultism – Increases your Focus Energy + it’s a requirement for occultism abilities (minions, poison, etc.).
• Cybertech – It’s a required to use certain machines and open some electronic loot containers. Also needed to unlock the use of some tech implants on tech abilities.
• Empathy – Influences some interaction with other characters. Pretty much unlocks new side quests.

Skills:

The 10 Skills we can invest into are separated into 3 categories – Social, Combat, & Trickery:

Social:

• Animalism – Lets you (and increases the chance to) capture certain creatures (flesh minions/larvae)
• Bartering – Improves the buying prices across all merchants

Combat:

• Melee Blunt – Increased melee blunt damage (clubs, hammers, etc.)
• Melee Sharp – Increased melee sharp damage (swords, claws, etc.)
• Small Guns – Increased small guns damage (pistols, revolvers, SMGs, etc.)
• Rifles – Increased rifle damage (rifles, machine rifles, energy rifles, etc.)
• High Tech – Increased damage with “high tech weapons”. My guess is rocket launchers and flamethrowers are boosted by this.

Trickery:

• Stealth – Influences how fast other characters discover you. Also boosts the backstab dmg, which is 4.0* at lvl 0 Stealth.
• Lockpicking – Required to unlock certain doors and chests
• Pickpocketing – Lets you pickpocket (steal from) NPCs. There’s apparently an achievement that requires you to put a grenade into an NPCs pockets and then steal it back.

Loadout – Gear, Body, Mind:

The “Loadout” in this game consists of 3 elements – Gear, Body, and Mind. Mix-and-match those 3 categories in combination with the Stats & Skills points to make your build.

Gear:

There are two weapon slots – for a range and a melee weapon. There are also a slots for chest armor, head armor + a trinket slot. The melee weapon can be upgraded for extra dmg once with certain consumables that can be purchased from NPCs. The ranged weapon consume ammo which can be purchased, found as drops or crafted (if you buy the recipe).

The chest armor usually focuses on resistances vs blunt, sharp, and projectiles but there are some that offer negative resistances to a certain type but and increased to another type of damage. The head armor so far has always been +5 to a certain single resistance type so it’s more of a case to pick the one that you feel you need the most or lack in. The trinket is a little bit of a passive boost and I’ve only found one that gives me 1 more critical (which the game does not clarify if it’s flat 1 dmg to my crits or an increase to the crit modifier from x2 to x3.

Body:

There are 4 usable slots and 2 locked ones in the Body interface. The head one seems to be reserved for “Stealth” or other such abilities that might replace it (so far have not found anything else that goes there in the Early Access). The other 3 usable ability slots are for all sorts of implants that one can get: Block, Freeze, Shock, summons, and others. You can see the gallery below for a some examples (not all of the possible ones tho):

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Mind:

There are 3 “Mind” slots where you equip “memories”. Those memories you obtain after finishing certain main or side quests. Some of the memories will not be equippable as they won’t give any passive bonuses, while others like the “Fleshkraken” memory seen above will grant a passive stats boos and can go in one of those 3 slots.

Crafting:

There are 4 sum-menus of the Crafting Interface: Deconstruct, Ammo, Consumables, and Gadgets.

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Merchants & Stores:

The are various merchants that can sell all sorts of thing: respecs, reskins, implants/abilities, materials & crafting components, consumables, crafting recipes, weapons, armor, etc. Some of those you’ll meet in outpost, while others may be located in various underground facilities or combat areas. There are even random anomaly encounters on the big map that would load you into a map with a traveling merchant.

Storage:

In terms of storage the game is kind of lacking and it can become a chore having to find room to store some spare gear or resources that you may need in the future but not right now. There isn’t enough room to carry stuff in either the Items or the Resources bags and the lack of personal stash in an outpost or all outposts can be felt. Players will need to resolve to tricks like using random lockers or storage spaces around the map and having to remember what they put in which locker. Those random lockers are extremely small and can only hold 4 items which could make it hard to remember which 4 things you put in which storage space.

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PROS & CONS:

PROS

• Beautiful World
• It’s Post-Apocalyptic
• Fast Paced Combat
• Solid VFX & SFX
• A bit of Build Diversity
• Can Craft Ammo & Heals
• Respecs are not too expensive
• Couch/local Co-Op

CONS

• there isn’t enough storage room or a big storage chest/trunk that can hold spare gear and/or materials.
• Some zones are locked behind quests that can be broken if you kill the quest NPCs
• No online co-op (not completely off the table but the budget doesn’t allow it for now)
• No post-story repeatable content loops

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This concludes my First Impressions of Death Trash. If you’re interested in the game below are links to the various platforms where one can buy it (you can just click the links to open a new tab):

• Official Website

Platforms

Early Access / In Development:

Steam (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

GOG (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

itch.io (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

Epic Games Store (Windows, Mac OS X) [this is a referral link – i get some profit if you use it]

Later:

XBox One & XBox Series X | S

Playstation 4 & Playstation 5

Nintendo Switch

Disclaimer: I’ve received a free copy of the game, which does not affect my opinion of the game in any way. I am however, very grateful to the devs for the steam key.