Deal | Under $10 Steam sale: New Steam Deck Verified co-op roguelike gets 1.0 launch with launch discount, immediately doubles player count and keeps positive review rating
Gatekeeper rather quietly launched to Steam Early Access in mid-2024, and the new co-op roguelike was met with a surprising amount of praise. Now, after spending over a year in the community-feedback oven, Gatekeeper 1.0 has officially launched on Steam.
Gatekeeper 1.0 launched with a number of gameplay changes, bug fixes, and a slew of new content. It also released with a 35% launch discount, bringing the new top-down roguelike to just $9.74 on Valve's gaming platform. The launch also coincides with Gatekeeper's Steam Deck Verified status, making it a great game for on- the-go play.
Gatekeeper gameplay, reviews, highlights
Gatekeeper is a roguelike at heart, meaning gameplay involves short, high-action missions with up to four-player co-op against Chaos itself. There are nine playable characters, each with their own abilities and play styles, and those abilities and play styles are further developed by the mission-based progression system that rewards you with powerful artifacts to augment your gameplay. Gatekeeper features a total of five planets, each with its own set of enemies and unique environments to do battle in.
During the Early Access period, Gatekeeper's player count peaked at around 1,650 players, but on launch, that has risen to a peak player count of over 2,900, which is not bad for an indie game merely a week after launch. The Steam review rating tells a similar story, with the game receiving a new batch of positive reviews on Steam shortly after launch and maintaining its overall Very Positive rating.
Most players praise Gatekeeper for its clean, well-crafted graphics, stand-out optimisation — minimum specs call for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 750, of all things — and the satisfying roguelike gameplay. Player reviews also frequently mention its similarity to Risk of Rain 2, although there is more than one review claiming that it improves on some parts of the more popular game. In particular, Gatekeeper maintains a better sense of balance, and the progression scales more appropriately with the game's enemies.
