Review: Chorus Thrillingly Proves that the Dogfighting Sim Days Aren’t Over

Few space shooters are as dedicated as Chorus is to making such an impact as an engrossing, thoughtful adventure.

Chorus
Photo: Deep Silver

It’s so easy to forget, but there was once a time when space-based video games weren’t nosedives into sprawling, meticulous strategy gaming. Many were just simple mission-based dogfighting sims, and at least half of them boasted Star Wars branding. Granted, 2020’s Star Wars Squadrons resurrected plenty of that bliss, but even that game’s campaign felt like a primer for its still-ongoing multiplayer. In that sense alone, Chorus feels like a throwback, a good old-fashioned, single-player, mission-based space shooter. It’s in every other aspect where Chorus tries to—and largely succeeds at—transcending limits.

Chorus throws a lot at the player in its opening minutes, but it’s not a lot in terms of new lore and glossary terms so much as heavy stakes. In the distant future, humanity has made itself right at home in the cosmos, which has led to the rise of a theocratic cult called The Circle, gifted with interdimensional superpowers by an unknown alien force. The Circle has been carrying out galactic genocide under the belief that the only way to true harmony—or Chorus—with the galaxy is through communion with the Circle and its Great Prophet. Any who oppose the Circle or its goals must die. After one of the cult’s most powerful Elders opens an interdimensional rift over a rebellious planet, killing most of its population, her guilt and shame causes her to leave the cult and go into hiding. This Elder, Nara, is our protagonist.

In terms of sheer gameplay, the developers at Fish Labs have delivered a satisfyingly straightforward experience. The game’s structure borrows a lot from more terrestrial open-world titles, but the map never feels overloaded. Missions are centered around beautifully rendered colonized space, dotted with space stations, asteroids, supply depots, hyperspace shipping lanes, lightspeed jump points, and alien temples, with people needing Nara to escort them through hostile space, investigate wrecks, or salvage goods. Combat is fast, responsive, and impactful. Every enemy has clearly defined weaknesses to each of Nara’s weapons and abilities, and there’s enough variation within that where dogfights never get stale.

Advertisement

YouTube video

Disappointingly, upgrades for Nara’s sentient ship, Forsa, are a little unbalanced. They can be bought or found during sidequests, but you’ll max out some stats way earlier than others. You may gain thousands of points in Hull Integrity before leaving the first planet, and maybe gain 100 points in shield energy throughout the campaign. Other enhancements are expensive to buy, and randomly found in the world, and many aren’t useful until late in the game.

Still, you never feel like you need to grind for resources to proceed. It also helps that so much of your progress is tied to the narrative anyway, and Chorus is one of the year’s biggest surprises in that regard. From beginning to end, this is a tale about atrocity, the factors that lead to it, and whether remorse can spur someone to take enough action to redeem themselves. There’s a surprising depth and complexity to the way that Chorus answers those questions for every single character. Even the simplest scavenger missions can lead Nara to consider how her actions in The Circle led to so many lives throughout the galaxy being lost.

When The Circle comes calling again, encroaching on Nara’s meager existence, she also needs Forsa to stand a chance of fighting the cult, and even the ship has a deep recognition that it’s the product of reprehensible crimes. Their bonding over shared pain should be ridiculous, but in practice, it’s absolutely enthralling. All this runs parallel to the Lovecraftian cosmic horrors at the game’s heart, but even as unnerving as that material gets, it’s all the more effective thanks to the very human and understandable reasons they’ve been allowed to exist. There are dozens of space shooters that will take up more of your time, and very few of them are dedicated to making this much of an impact as an engrossing, thoughtful adventure.

Advertisement

The game was reviewed using a review code provided by Tinsley PR.

Score: 
 Developer: Fish Labs  Publisher: Deep Silver  Platform: PC  Release Date: December 3, 2021  ESRB: T  ESRB Descriptions: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language  Buy: Game

Justin Clark

Justin Clark is a gaming critic based out of Massachusetts. His writing has also appeared in Gamespot.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.