Frenetic, fungal and just good fun: Mycopunk is available in early access now

Fungus doesn’t get the best rep in video games, does it? If it’s not Cordyceps ruining the earth and turning humans into basically zombies in The Last of Us, it’s becoming sentient and making a nuisance of itself in Mycopunk. The latter, out today in early access, equips you to the nines with all the guns and explosives you could need to send those mycological menaces flying into next week.

A co-op shooter at heart, Mycopunk puts you in the shoes of a robot employee of the SAXON Corporation. Along with a bunch of other ragtag chunks of metal, you make up the New Atlas Hazard Crew. You’re an exterminator, basically, sent on a range of missions to research, destroy, and then destroy some more of the strange and dangerous fungus that’s threatening the planet.

As a first-person shooter, Mycopunk doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not quite full Borderlands in its humour, but with your protagonist occasionally swearing or exclaiming at their precarious situation, it certainly leans more comedic than most. Consider the game’s eclectic range of weapons, its cel-shaded visual style and its space-faring setting, and it’s hard to imagine it isn’t inspired by Borderlands in some way.

Not that that’s a bad thing, of course: I love Borderlands. And considering Mycopunk is still in early access, with a lot more content and refining still to come, I’ve been having a lot of fun making my way through its short and sharp missions. That’s perhaps the biggest difference: Mycopunk is designed for bouts of co-op play, so rather than being open world in nature, it’s broken down into focused missions that can be accessed via a hub world.

Generally, I’m not a huge fan of mission-based shooters: I prefer something more cohesive. But thanks to the range of activities on offer in Mycopunk, it’s hard to mind too much. Not only will be you be defeating fungal foes, you’ll be activating beacons, protecting batteries to power up a giant weapon, hunting down signals and a whole lot more. It’s always varied, keeping you eager to jump into the next mission just so you can see what task awaits you next time.

It doesn’t go easy on you, though. Even on its easiest difficulty, Mycopunk’s enemies don’t hold back, and you’ll be shot at, spewed on and prodded from behind with weird mushroomy tentacles. Enemy design isn’t the most varied, but what you do come across here are unlike anything you’ve seen before. From small crab-like creatures that sneak up on you when you least expect it to giant, hulking beasts that wouldn’t look out of place in War of the Worlds, they all put up a good fight.

Perhaps too good, especially if you’re playing alone. You’ll need to keep your wits about you, be quick on your feet and maintain a safe distance if you don’t want to see your health bar continually diminish. You don’t need to worry about health kits — if you manage not to take damage for a short period of time, your HP bar will refill itself. But if you’re in the midst of an enemy horde, avoiding damage is easier said than done. With multiple players, it becomes easier to keep enemies at bay, but when you’re playing by yourself, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Still, it’s such a thrill when you do manage to complete an objective. There’s an extraction shooter element here: once you’ve done the mission at hand, you’ll need to call your escape pod. It takes a minute or two to arrive, at which point the enemies are likely to double down on their objective to ruin your day. But if you stay alive long enough you can run into your pod and leave them all behind, taking the spoils of glory back with you to the safety of your hub.

Here, you’ll be able to upgrade your abilities and customise your weapons, becoming ever stronger against the furious fungi. Mycopunk isn’t all that loot heavy, but you will find materials and parts which can be used in unlocking new weapons and upgrading your existing ones. It’ll take a few missions before you’ve got enough to make any meaningful changes, but you’ll have fun tinkering in your menus, seeing what upgrades are available to you.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Mycopunk evolves over its time in early access. Developer Pigeons at Play says there’s already a finished game here, but its six-or-so months in early access will give the team time to add more stuff, respond to play feedback and expand the game’s narrative. You aren’t getting a half-baked beta here: this is already a fully-functional game with just about everything you’d expect at a 1.0 launch. In the words of the developer, “because we have hundreds of upgrades, some will be very unbalanced. That’s why we need you to give us feedback on what’s overpowered and what needs to be improved.”

In other words? If you manage to get your hands on a weapon build that obliterates everything you so much as look at, don’t get too attached to it.

Mycopunk is available now in Steam Early Access.