Meet Your Maker Review (Tranklizer)
It's a well made asymmetric FPS and base builder that can dance the line between tense dungeon crawling and frantic movement shooter chaos. The game is split between building your own outposts and raiding outposts made by others. Both are appealing for different reasons and can be rewarding but it is not mandatory to do both if you find yourself gravitating towards one over the other.
Raiding
Raiding sees you entering another player's outpost and trying to steal a key resource (referred to in-game as GenMat) while avoiding all of the traps and guards the opposing player has set up to kill you. Everything in this game operates on a one-hit-kill basis so raiding is based predominantly on quick reactions and carefully taking stock of your surroundings. Something that should be said is that while I quite enjoy the raiding, Meet Your Maker is not the game for you if you get easily frustrated when having to repeat a challenging level over and over. Many of the outposts available to raid are brutally difficult and you will be reminded constantly that the builder's goal is the kill you as many times as possible. If you find that kind of challenge rewarding, you'll have a very satisfying experience with this game. There's an undeniable joy to finally finishing a difficult outpost that's had you tensely moving around every corner desperately on edge because you've made it further than you ever had before and don't want to lose your progress.
The gameplay options available to you as a raider are simple yet efficient. You can only carry two weapons and a couple special items. These can range from guns to swords to grenades to shields. This is in addition to passive buffs you can apply to your character via either your suit abilities or single use enhancements. The game's received a few updates by this point and the options for equipment loadout now offer a decent variety of playstyles. The systems aren't overly complicated but that's because most outposts are designed to be completed in only a few minutes (provided that you don't die. In practice some of the harder outposts can taken considerably longer to finish as you go through multiple attempts)
Something that is remarkably strong is the movement system for the raider. You can use a grappling hook (seemingly a necessity in all sci-fi FPS games now) and can move around an environment very fast, zipping around enemies and traps dodging dozens of projectiles as you try to clear a room. My one major criticism of the raiding experience is that while this type of movement is possible, it is only viable in specific circumstances. In most outposts, it's much more reliable to take it slow and only put yourself in least amount of danger at a time, which feels like a waste of the movement mechanics. Rushing in, especially when you don't know the trap layout will certainly get you killed.
Building
The other half of the game is building outposts for other players to raid. While the raiding can be equal parts tense and chaotic, the building is obviously much more relaxed and almost meditative. The layout of each outpost is based on a 3D grid of blocks, looking very much like a high-res version of minecraft but also including 45 degree slopes. You can place blocks or create entire walls/floors at a time. Traps and guards can also be easily dotted around your environment. Everything has to be placed manually though. There is no way to copy entire sections and paste them or rotate them elsewhere. This can make certain features like repeated decorations or trap layouts a bit tedious, but the tradeoff is that that building system is very approachable. There's a very low learning curve to the technical side of building, although the more creative side both in terms of visuals as well as good trap placement and level design will take quite a bit of practice to become really proficient with.
There are several limitations to the building system. The main one is that there needs to be a clear path from the entrance of the level to the GenMat for the raider to collect. This path needs to be navigable by the Harvester Unit (HRV) which cannot jump or climb walls. This means that the path must be continuous. This can feel a bit limiting, but it's vital for ensuring that the raider has some idea of where to go. If you could put the entrance to the GenMat down a hole or tucked away in a wall somewhere, the raiding experience would be defined more by boredom from trying to find out where he/she is supposed to go rather than by the challenge of contending with your traps. Another limitation is that the plot of land you can build on is auto-populated by immovable bedrock which shows up in random patterns for every outpost you create. Once the bedrock is generated it is impossible to remove it and you must build around it. I understand that this was done to force builders to use different layouts for each outpost they make, but sometimes the amount of bedrock generated can get frankly obnoxious.
Something else I want to highlight though is the possibility for artistic expression. Having to build exclusively with cubes and 45 degree slopes may sound limiting, but Meet Your Maker provides a lot of cosmetic options for customizing your outpost. These are all entirely optional, but there's a lot of flexibility for some visually impressive maps as demonstrated by the community. Not every outpost you run into will have that kind of love put into it, but some of the ones that do really shine.
Progression
Up until very recently, this was something the game really struggled with. It's improved significantly with recent updates, but it's still in my opinion the game's weakest part. This mostly stems from how there isn't much to spend the different types of currency on. You'll find that unless you are building and activating/reactivating outposts a lot, you'll quickly find yourself with a buildup of currency. Something you can spend the money on are boosts that result in you getting slightly more money for a short duration (only an hour or so depending on your level) which seems baffling and like the kind of thing that would be done in a free-2-play game... except Meet Your Maker isn't free-2-play
Recently though, there's been a collection of cosmetics you can unlock by raiding a lot. These help provide some more incentive to raid more outposts (which in turn gives the builders more rewards, as they earn progress for kills and accolades given to their outposts) but it doesn't solve the aforementioned currency issue. The cosmetics themselves are pretty good. Given the game's very serious tone they can't go into wild territory for suit/weapon skins like a more cartoony game could, but it's still a welcome addition.
Conclusion
Meet Your Maker is a game that tries and mostly succeeds at balancing both fast paced and tense first person combat with more relaxing and user friendly base building. The raiding can lend to frustration sometimes and the building takes a while to develop as a skill, but both offer a satisfying gameplay loop, even if the meta-game progression still needs to be ironed out a bit as the development progresses.