I don’t quite know what’s going on this year. But the first 6 months of 2024 have been stacked with great games. It seems like so many have come out in the last couple of months that I can’t keep up with them. That being said, I’m slowly getting around to playing, enjoying, and completing some of my backlog. Which brings me to Sentry. I first got to play this at WASD in 2023 and sat down with the lovely Gary from Fireblade Software as he talked me through some of the game as I played the demo.
It’s now been out for a few months in early access and I’ve managed to spend a chunk of time, fighting off alien invasions aboard my spaceship and you know what, it’s really good fun.
SENTRY
In Sentry you are part of the SENTRY defense program and have been thawed from stasis. Your job is to protect the ship as it flees across space following the fall of Earth. Alien attackers will invade the ship and try to fight their way to different systems and the core of the ship to destroy it. You’ll have to use the knowledge of the ship to lay strategic traps and wield an arsenal of guns to hold them off. The farther you travel, the longer you survive the bigger and tougher the threats will become.
Part tower defense, part FPS, with a sprinkle of a couple more genres, Sentry takes a mixture and stirs them around in a big pot to great effect. Creating a fun and satisfying gameplay loop. Everything starts off quite calm where you’ll feel like you have plenty of time to lay a few traps. The enemies won’t pose too much of a threat as they trickle in through breach holes.
Frantic fun
However, things can quickly change as you progress. With your resources dwindling you might not be able to put down as many traps. Or maybe you’ve just run out of time to place them in the best places, and the risk of running through killed enemies to pick up more scarps is too risky. You’ll soon find yourself scrambling to deal with aliens breaking in at multiple locations. But as you play you will learn what works best and what doesn’t. Strategic choke points will materialise in your mind as you’re prepping for the next wave of attacks. With plenty of different trap types, turrets, weapons and more to pick you won’t be short on options for taking out aliens by the dozen.
During your progress, you’ll collect scarp and research materials which will allow you to upgrade your items making them more powerful and capable of dealing with tougher threats. It’s excellent fun and things can get quite frantic and chaotic.
The Plan
The game plans on being in early access for roughly 9-12 months (from launch) during that period you can expect to see a raft of new weapons, deployables, enemy types, and much more. Furthermore, there is a plan to add co-op which will take the enjoyment of the game (which is already great) to completely new heights. There’s a whole lot more planned too. You can check the roadmap here. Additionally, the first major update to the game is also imminent, details of which you can see here. Sentry is a really fun game and I’m loving it at the moment. The plans for what’s to come sound like it will only get better.
