I'm not 100% sure why I'm running, but I know it feels good. A few NPCs have mentioned something about the end of the world, sure. And I know I'm traversing floating islands while dodging what looks like overzealous mining equipment and running from an all-consuming corruption, but Haste: Broken Worlds feels so good to play that I don't really care about any of that. All I really know is that this is a better Steam Next Fest demo than I'd hoped for, and everything else will have to be extremely impressive to beat it.
I first got wind of Haste: Broken Worlds thanks to a very different game. The extremely silly ragdoll strategy game Totally Accurate Battle Simulator introduced me to developer Landfall, which has been teasing clips of its speedy new project for a few years now. Early prototype clips of a character moving at incredible speed through shattered landscapes caught my eye and ensured that Haste was one of my first Steam Next Fest downloads.
As Zoe, you're escaping the end of the world. As you sprint through each procedural level, you're doing your best to outrun the corruption that's scarily close on your tail. Zoe's speed means that she can pick up some serious air off the gently undulating ridges of the remaining shards of the universe she's running through, but the catch is that while she's quick on her feet, she's not so fast in the air. As a result, Haste becomes a game about perfectly cresting those ridges, adjusting your trajectory ever-so-slightly to make sure you stick a perfect landing and keep sprinting ahead.
The result is an incredible flow-state, reminiscent of the best of 3D Sonic and freerunning games like Mirror's Edge. A genuinely smooth run feels so good that you almost don't notice the obstacles scattered around the map like the world's most chaotic minigolf course. Add in the collectible sparks that function as both this world's currency and a subtle guide as to the optimal route, and you feel like you're almost floating through each level.
Haste: Broken Worlds earns its roguelike stripes through a Slay the Spire-style map, allowing you to pick your route between normal runs, random encounters, shops and rest stops, and tricky boss levels - complex and unforgiving maps that reward you with strategy-altering bonuses if you can make it to the end. You'll enter each attempt with a handful of lives that persist between levels, enforcing speed and precision - collisions will harm Zoe and slow her down, and if you go off the map or get caught by the corruption, you'll lose a life and have to start the level over. Lose all three lives and you're starting from scratch, meaning a single tricky map can stop an entire attempt in its tracks, adding real stakes to every single crash or wrong turn.
There's still a lot to come to Haste: Broken Worlds. The Steam Next Fest offering only includes the tutorial and one 'shard', culminating in a single boss fight, as well as a relatively small number of NPC encounters. But the procedural maps and the quality of the freerunning means that I've replayed it dozens of times already, and I'm still having an excellent time. We're only a matter of hours into the latest Next Fest, but I genuinely think this demo is going to be a tough one to beat.
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