A Devil May Cry x Doom crossover wasn’t on my bingo card for 2025 – what a year it’s proving to be. Rebel Engine is the spliced combination of stylish hack-and-slash with Doom or Quake boomer shooter energy firing up its robotic chassis. Can it form a perfect synergy, or will this machine land a decent punch with no follow through?

With A Rebel Yell, I Cried No

As someone who often partakes in the visceral thrill of a fast-paced, combo meter adrenaline rush, Rebel Engine seemed right up my street. Across it’s campaign of eight levels (with two further unlockable ones), the developers throw a huge variety of weapons and mechanics at you, like one of those rotating disc clowns having knives thrown at them at the circus.

Combat is comprised of melee attacks, including a basic strike, launching uppercut, dash and ground pound. You’ll acquire a couple as the levels progress, with differing properties and abilities. Then there’s the guns, which have limited ammo, but each has a unique property. The goal is to cycle between all of your available moves to keep things fresh, intense and stylish as hell.

On the surface, it’s a very deep sandbox. I enjoyed learning the optimal cycles of peppering with vulnerability-inflicting pellets, jumping into a ground pound for max damage, then blasting away with the shotgun and rifle. Throw in a parry system, grappling hook and different “super” moves like an eviscerating wave of energy, and Rebel Engine will be throwing the whole house at you, never mind the kitchen sink.

Fire Up The Engine

Rebel Engine has the frenetic pace of old-school retro FPS’ like Quake, meaning it’s full-throttle throughout. There’s a lot to like, and I certainly did have fun when it was firing on all cylinders and the enemy variety (which is also good) is challenging you to keep moving and use everything in your toolbox of destruction.

I’m sure, however, you can sense a “but” coming. That big ol’ “but” is the lack of real oomph that comes from your hits on foes. Your shotgun blast roars like a lion but the sheepish knockback it provides fails to give that punchy feeling that hits the dopamine in something like Doom. Melee hits feel akin to slapping the T-1000 with a banana skin, and it weakens the combat feel substantially.

This is worsened in encounters with lots of armoured or harder-hitting enemies. I found they would frequently hit through my attacks, or ignore supposedly high damage, making some boss fights a real gruesome war of attrition or frustration. One in particular involving two massive bosses was such a pain it made me give up altogether for the evening. The sandbox and toolset you have are impressively deep, but the combat feel and tightness of the mechanics are lacking that last bit of polish.

Join The Rebel Alliance

Rebel Engine does do a good job with its style system, which rewards inventive play. Use the same ranged attack 2-3 times, you’ll quickly find yourself out of ammo. Repeat the same melee strikes over and over, you’ll get few style points. Speed and effectiveness are the name of the game, and I like how the developers reward players for taking advantage of everything at their disposal.

However, on a controller, it feels damned difficult to get accustomed to. There are just so many inputs to try and remember, alongside needing to be dead-on with timing and movement. I personally found it quite challenging to get around the control scheme, which is rather cumbersome, and there can sometimes be too much of a good thing, which felt like the case here.

It doesn’t help that, while decently voiced and written, Rebel Engine’s story is very paint-by-numbers. Your robot protagonist has been used as a guinea pig for gladiator style battles, dying hundreds if not thousands of times in service of entertainment for a megalomaniac machine overlord. You bust out of captivity, and begin your quest to take down and destroy every servant in your way to the big bad.

Revving Up, or Down?

Each level has its own boss figure or voice that taunts you, culminating in a boss battle of some kind. The structure works for the hack-and-slash genre and that’s no different here. I can’t say I became in any way invested in whatever narrative was going on, but I wasn’t offended by it either. It’s there for those who take the time to invest, and is forgettable for those who just want the chaos and mechanical bloodbath.

Similarly, the colourful and vibrant cartoon visuals are a delight. Heading out of the sterile interiors to gaze upon the dystopian, yellow-adorned city for the first time was pretty awe-inspiring. Things can become quite cluttered and difficult to discern when the bluster is ramped up to 11 in engagements, but that’s the same for even the best of the genres.

Sadly, I did run into some bugs. Namely, enemies getting positively pelted into geometry that clearly was not pelting-here material. I had to quit out a couple of times to reset encounters, and I couldn’t really work out how the save function worked, as the Continue button in the menu was never selectable, forcing me to just use level select (and thus forcing me to always finish a level to save…).

Rebel In Disguise

The long and short of Rebel Engine is that it has an impressively complex and deep set of combat systems that are very clearly its core focus. If you’re searching for that next DMC, smokin-sexy-style fix of adrenaline, I very much think Rebel Engine will have the injection of energy you’re pining for. I wish the animation work felt more impactful to compliment it, but the fundamentals are very solid.

Aside from the visuals, though, everything else that surrounds the combat package feels off. Difficulty spikes are abundant. Flat-out unfair engagements are common, including a turret sequence where said turret can fire through literal walls (you’re supposed to parry them while jumping/dashing at the same time). Most of all, it just tends to fall flat despite good enemy variety and creative boss design.

Rebel Engine has a lot of demonstrably good ideas, some of which it executes. Others, it strikes with a cringe-inducing ‘pang’ as its dull blade bounces right off. There’s a good few hours of content, including an arena mode and secrets to uncover in the levels, provided you can overcome some of its entry barriers.

Rebel Engine is available now on PC via Steam (review platform).

Developer: Seven Leaf Clover
Publisher: Wandering Wizard

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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