Sunset Overdrive

Sunset Overdrive is an open-world game from Insomniac Games focused on parkour. It is a irreverent adventure that constantly breaks the fourth wall and makes the apocalypse into your tactical playground. Embrace the chaos of Sunset City!

About the story and settings

We begin at a Fizzco (soft drink corporation) event in Sunset City. We are their employee when all of their consumers transform into monsters—Overcharge Drinkers (OD). We manage to escape with help, and now our initial mission will be to escape from this island city.

As we advance, we will meet survivors, both allies and enemies, with fortifications and plans to escape or make the most of the situation. Isn't strange how they have all this despite the fact that the apocalypse happened practically yesterday?

• Sunset city: our region to explore, we will visit industrial areas, supermarkets and skyscrapers.
• Expansions: The game includes 2 extra regions, a technology factory and a destroyed oil port.
• Events: While we travel we can find random situations: survivors being chased, factions fighting and some more!

About the gameplay and mechanics

Movement is the essence of the game, as we must use it constantly. We can slide, grind, bounce off certain objects, run up walls, and more as we advance; the city is designed so that you can make the most of these actions.
For combat, we have a bat for melee combat and two basic weapons. As we advance, we will be able to get more, doing quests and buying.

Style: A bar that will increase as you move while fighting or traveling, useful for extra speed and powers. Playing without exploiting this, is a death sentence.

Badges: We will obtain more as long as we perform certain actions—using the same type of weapon, defeating enemies, or performing movement actions.

Enemies: There are three types of enemies that hate each other: ODs, bandits, and robots. Although the latter two do not have many variants, ODs do, and are the most common.

Weapons: From automatic to explosive, each bizarre weapon has its pros and cons against certain types of enemies.

In addition to this, we have extra content around the city:

Collectibles: There are certain objects (lots of) to find/destroy around the city, some requires your ability to catch them; some are hidden, which slows down the pace of the game a little.

Challenges: Earn points, parkour, place bombs, glide! and more; some mechanics can only be found here.

About the customization and currency

Right from the start, we will customize our character (with limited options). Once we finish the tutorial, we will be able to customize again with more options, from underwear to tattoos or decorations. To get more clothes, we will complete missions or buy them from a special NPC with dollars. This is purely aesthetic and has no effect on your stats.

Then we have Amps these can be equipped on you and your weapons, improving your chances of survival and damage/ammunition. To obtain them, you must spend the collectible items you find in the city, and to upgrade them, you must pay with overcharge.

And this is a problem with the system; both amps and weapons requires overcharge to obtain, con high costs, on the other side clothes are mostly cheaps and dollars are easy to obtain, leaving them unused, at least doing challenges perfectly reward us with overcharge.

Is it recommended?

Sunset Overdrive is a fun game, both gameplay and plot, there's lot to do and letting play as you like. Campaign is not long but both expansions and challenges add more with different content, collectibles are a nice addition but a bit over the top. Overall is not difficult, so if you are looking for a fun open world, this is a solid choice. If you are completionist, it will take you 35-40 hours.