There’s no doubt that the extraction shooter, as a genre, has blown up over the last few years. It’s rare to see a new sub-genre of video games, but after battle royale took over with PUBG and Fortnite, a new breed of competitive shooter has been quietly brewing in the background. With big hits like Escape from Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown and others leading the charge, SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada looks to bring a new spin on things, swapping first-person gunfights for third-person mecha action. It’s unique enough to warrant a look, but its repetitive, grind-filled nature might be too off-putting, even if it remains charming throughout.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future in 2222, a mysterious poisonous rain called The Tears of the New Moon has wiped out most of humanity, and now strange mutant monsters roam the Earth’s surface. Humans have had to build an underground haven to survive, but resources are finite; so, they’ve developed mechas to safely navigate the treacherous surface and gather resources. As a Drifter, you’ll search for a particularly rare resource, AO Crystals, which serve as a sort of power supply, and collecting it is the main goal of exploration; but, there are plenty of other resources needed, and other Drifters are roaming as well. Will they be a friend or foe? Can you safely extract with the supplies and live to tell the tale?

It’s a fairly interesting setup, more unique than most extraction shooters I’ve come across, and the fact that you’re stomping around in giant mechas (called Cradlecoffins here) is instantly appealing. You’ll go out on runs (Sorties) which have you completing requests and gathering resources so that you can buy or craft equipment back in your home base. Each mecha has its own endurance level, load capacity and operation time, and they can be customised with different body parts and weapons that switch things up a little bit. A more nimble shell means you can move faster, for example, but it’s at the expense of not being able to carry as much back with you at the end of a Sortie.

The surface is also a dangerous place to explore, to begin with; there are Enders, the aforementioned mutant monsters roaming around; Bandits, other AI mecha guarding certain resource-heavy locations on the map, and acid rain that regularly makes life difficult, impacting your weather resistance. You’ll need to find shelter to avoid it, or simply carry with you kits to replenish, taking up valuable space. The last threat, and perhaps the most interesting, is other online players you’ll encounter. You can cooperate with them or compete with them, but getting killed before reaching an extraction point means losing all of your equipment and items. Not a new concept for extraction shooter faithful, but still a tough pill to swallow when coming to grips with SYNDUALITY’s core concepts.

You also have your personal Magus, a humanoid AI that supports you in exploration, scavenging and combat, floating happily alongside you at all times. They’re essentially an anime-trope-filled waifu or husband that hangs out with you, giving you advice as you explore the surface, and keeping you company back at your base. Each model type has a different personality and you can customise their appearance as well, if you’re so inclined. You can even watch them bathe. Really. There’s an in-game purpose for it, sure, but it’s still a little strange.

But, they also make the exploration of the surface a lot less lonely. They’ll point out when certain items on your wishlist are nearby, and alert you when they hear the engine of another Drifter in the distance. They’ll also analyse threats, giving you a percentage chance of survival, and come armed with one unique ability that can be used every few minutes; the one I stuck with activates a dome around my mecha, preventing acid rain from damaging me, which was super helpful when I was low on time and didn’t want to have to take cover.

Some may find the Magus overly chatty, but I always appreciated the company. You won’t ever see “yourself” in the game, so they sort of end up representing you and your home. You’ll be given missions to complete out in the world, such as travelling to specific locations to gather data, killing enemies with certain weapon types and so on, but the main goal you’ll have in SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada is upgrading your Garage, by collecting specific resources and cash to do so. Not only will that give the space a visual upgrade, looking progressively nicer the more you build, but it will also give you in-game benefits that are important in aiding your progress.

The Production Space, for example, lets you craft multiple items at once when it’s upgraded, and the Renovator means you can perform repairs on your equipment for cheaper. The Item Warehouse improves your storage, and the Transport Elevator gives you a random assortment of items and money once each day, which is super helpful. You can also get your Magus a Piggy Bank so that they can save money in real-time for you, or you can invest in the Insurance Payout Receiver, which means you’ll receive an insurance payout faster if you choose to buy insurance on a Sortie and have your equipment destroyed.

It’s very satisfying to see the Garage come together, and as you continue to evolve it, the small improvements of each upgrade make a real difference in how you play and the rewards you receive. Of course, a lot of the upgrades require specific materials, and you can wishlist them so that they show up on the map. That system doesn’t work perfectly, mind. While some wishlist items were pointed out to me frequently when I approached certain areas, other times I’d have them on the ground in front of me and they wouldn’t be highlighted at all. Still, the map does a decent job of pinpointing zones where you’ll primarily find them, so it’s not a total luck of the draw.

Where SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada somewhat falls apart is that its first few hours feel like its peak. Those first Sorties, exploring the map carefully, grabbing supplies, completing missions and encountering other players, are exhilarating. I loved my first several runs, getting a real sense of accomplishment as I worked on my base and found new parts to craft. But then, the missions tend to repeat themselves; collect 10 of these, shoot 15 of these with a Sniper, go to this point of the map, okay now go to that point of the map, and so on.

Gathering resources is fun enough, but being forced to find a specific one over and over means potentially several Sorties just to complete one quest; you can’t carry that much, and that’s not something you can fix early on, and an unlucky encounter with a Bandit can stop you in your tracks, making you lose everything. You can’t take that many hits, and your guns just don’t feel very punchy; it could have to do with the latency of always being online, but rarely do bullets feel like they are connecting, if not for the damage numbers that keep appearing. Enemies aren’t varied, with only a few re-skins and more spongey variants, and combat isn’t too thrilling in the first place.

You also can’t partner up with a mate and load into a map together; it’s intentionally set up so that you form co-op alliances on the fly, so the only way you’ll play with friends is if you attempt to load into the same instance and find each other on the giant map. A buddy and I did achieve this a few times and enjoyed completing quick co-op missions together – like taking down a big baddie – before exploring and gathering resources as a duo. But, we yearned for the ability to just squad up and play it fully as a team, so it feels like a missed opportunity, even if part of me respects the developer’s choice to not do this and keep things “fair and balanced”.

Glimpses of a different game occasionally pop up; some solo missions are available, where you’ll play as a specific mecha, battling against other AI mecha on a linear path, finding collectables and uncovering more of the story, presumably linking to the SYNDUALITY: Noir anime that debuted a couple of years ago. But you don’t get any cool rewards for completing these missions, other than some more lore to sift through. You’ll only collect ammo and weapons throughout, simply there to get you to the finish line and never looking back. There was real potential to tie these missions into the online Sorties in a compelling way, and they’ve missed it here.

Then, there’s the micro-transactions of it all. SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada is a full-price title but has a Battle Pass, a store to purchase new Magus outfits, and everything can be sped up by chucking a bit of cash at it. An upgrade on your Garage might take an hour – or, you can spend some money to complete it straight away. To be fair, you can spend in-game currency that is earned easily enough to do the same thing when it comes to speeding up the development of your base; and, you don’t have to engage in any of these money-spinners. The stuff you’ll unlock in the Battle Pass and store is mostly cosmetic, after all. But it still stings to spend on a game like this, in a genre where they’re often free-to-play, and then have all of these additional costs popping up.