Replaced hands-on preview: the action-platformer isn't cyberpunk enough

The action-platformer is stylish, but doesn’t stand out within the cyberpunk genre

Sad Cat Studios has been developing its first game, the cyberpunk action-platformer Replaced, since 2018, initially targeting a 2022 release. The project was delayed multiple times: The Russo-Ukrainian war spurred the team to move offices from Belarus to a remote-first approach, and it reimagined Replaced’s art style twice before settling on the pixel art 2.5D that made it a standout E3 reveal (remember E3?) in 2021. Replaced is finally out on March 12, but after a recent two-hour hands-on demo, I’m not sure if the game was worth the wait.

Replaced is set in an alternate version of the 1980s in which a nuclear weapon detonated on U.S. soil (cause unclear) and the government teamed up with a powerful private company called Phoenix Corporation to rebuild. It kicks off in the heart of the company's power, Phoenix City. Warren, one of the company’s leaders, is spending far too much time hooking up his brain to his AI assistant, Reach. When an accident leads to Reach being trapped in Warren’s body, the naive program hopes that the cops will help him fix things. Instead they try to execute him, forcing Reach to flee corporate headquarters.

Unfortunately, that’s where the most cyberpunk aspect of my demo ended. Reach runs into the woods, doing some repetitive platforming as he jumps over fallen trees to stay one step ahead of the cops pursuing him. Eventually, he tumbles into a pile of bodies, the victims of an organ harvesting scheme run by Phoenix Corp, and is rescued by the far more stereotypical protagonist, Tempest. He’s one cool dude who plays guitar, has a sick car, owns a katana, and pushes the buttons his ramshackle community's leaders because he’s so eager to fight the man. I assume Tempest will die heroically at some point in this game.

Phoenix City has an impenetrable wall around it, and Reach has found himself among the people the corporation running things has discarded. Rather than a cyberpunk environment full of hackers, hyper-capitalism, and surveillance, the first few hours of Replaced are mostly set in a post-apocalyptic environment where you’re fighting a gang called The Ticks, who feel straight out of Mad Max. The developers showed us a bit of gameplay actually set in Phoenix City, where Reach has to hack traffic lights to blend in with a crowd of pedestrians and avoid being spotted by roving drones. That felt far more like what I wanted from this game. The one thing that kept the vibe going throughout my playtime is the synth-heavy score.

There’s plenty of lore hidden about the colorful refugee community Tempest helps run that explains the game world's status quo, but there’s not much to meaningfully interact with early in the game and the characters all feel pretty shallow. Reach is naive, though he’s slowly learning about the bad stuff he was a part of. Tempest’s allies all seem to be pretty good people, mostly distinguished by how physically or mentally worn down they are by living on the edge.

There are two side quests in this zone that can earn you extra health: a simple fetch quest and one that involves winning the favor of a stereotypical quirky video game-obsessed girl by beating her high score on an arcade game that incorporates driving around and playing a version of the classic hand-eye coordination testing board game Operation. I got tired with the minigame after two unsuccessful tries — I was never good at Operation — and decided to just go take on some more Ticks.

Developer and Sad Cat co-founder Igor Gritsay cites the Uncharted and Arkham franchises as two of the primary touchstones for Replaced. Reach spends a lot of time trying not to fall to his death by jumping around buildings and a defunct coal mine, grabbing clearly marked handholds or using a pickax to latch onto worn areas of the walls. The controls on the jump-ax portion are a bit sluggish, but it does feel satisfying to navigate a jungle gym of rebar while also timing your moves to avoid a patrol that will shoot you on site. The game really shines when it shifts from side-scroller to 2.5D, with Reach maneuvering through corridors that shows how the highly detailed environment around him is juxtaposed with the simple pixels representing his body.

“I think pixel art is a great art style because it allows people to imagine things that are not there,” Gritsay told Polygon. “They are upscaling it in their minds. At the same time, with the backgrounds, we can be however sophisticated as we want with it because those are supporting the main cast.”

Combat is intuitive if simple, with Reach using a stun baton to hit enemies until he can charge up enough to unleash a powerful shot. Bad guys flash yellow when they’re about to unleash a move that you can counterattack and red if they’re going to go for a big hit you need to dodge. Nastier enemies will sometimes do a red move twice in a row, so you need to react fast.

I’m told that was the case for the Immortan Joe-like Tick leader I was supposed to fight at the end of the demo, but a major bug turned off the lighting in a section so I couldn’t do the platforming required to play the demo's third hour. About half the players at my demo experienced the same problem. I know the team is working hard to get this game ready — Gritsay’s partner Yura Zhdanovich wasn’t available for interviews because he was up until 7 a.m. working on the build I played — so hopefully there will be a smoother experience at launch.

Cyberpunk as a genre feels more relevant than ever, which is why it’s disappointing that Replaced’s developers don’t seem to be utilizing it as much as they could. While the game’s pixel art is stylish and the soundtrack would be great background music, the story and gameplay in the first two hours seemed pretty simplistic. Maybe things get better once you really start to explore Phoenix City late in the game, but having to spend hours getting to good stuff feels frustrating after waiting so long to play at all.

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Replaced will release on Windows PC and Xbox Series X on March 12.