Thank you Mythwright for the review code!

TerraTech came out in 2018 as an open-world sandbox game where you craft combat-ready vehicles to become the ultimate planetary prospector. TerraTech Legion combines the combat vehicle mechanics with Survivors-like gameplay. You won’t find much of a story playing the game, but the Steam store page says that a swarm of AI bots is tearing across the galaxy assimilating every planet in its path.

There are multiple characters you can play as and they each have their own benefits and fighting style. I found Jean-Pierre the easiest to play since his vehicle has a layer of armor that can withstand swarm attacks more than the other characters. Each character has a starting vehicle build that you can customize to your liking. Cepheid’s vehicle hovers while Sam’s starts off with three wheels.

Like other Survivor-style games, you’ll have to take out swarms of enemies, and many of them will drop scrap upon their demise. As you collect scrap, your character/vehicle will level up and you can customize your vehicle with various parts you have collected along the way. There are over two-hundred upgrades you can unlock and attach to your vehicle.

There are expansion blocks that you can use to lengthen and widen your ride to make room for more weapons and upgrades. There’s a wide range of weapons including drones, guns, missiles, lasers, turrets, drills, saws, and elemental attacks as well. You can also equip various boosts to increase your health, repair rate, pickup range, boost capabilities and more.

When you first launch the game, Mikela will be your only available character. Additionally, the only playable planet is the first one called Dust Bowl. There are four planets and they each have three difficulty levels with three stars that you can unlock in each level. Additional planets, levels, and characters will be unlocked by earning stars.

Each character has their own technology tree with permanent upgrades available for purchase. Along with earning stars, you can earn in-game money by completing randomly assigned contracts. Chances are you’ll complete contracts without even trying!

Some of the stars can be easily obtained by simply leveling up or defeating the boss. Other stars are difficult to earn within the time limit of thirty minutes per run. Many of the stars can only be unlocked with specific characters, so it’s a good idea to get familiar with all of them.

At first, only the campaign is available, and after a few stars are unlocked, you can play the survival mode. A skirmish in the campaign mode lasts roughly thirty minutes with a mini-boss appearing at the halfway mark. Whenever a boss appears, a ring of death will appear around them keeping the combatants in place until a winner is declared. The ring will continually shrink, so make sure to defeat the bosses quickly! The survival mode keeps going with a boss appearing every fifteen minutes until you lose all of your health. The longer you can stay alive, the higher your score will be.

Morally, there’s little to complain about in TerraTech Legion. There is vehicular violence against robotic creatures and other vehicles. Each planet has a different climate and the ones with extreme heat and freezing will damage or substantially slow down your vehicle.

As you upgrade your vehicle, its appearance will change accordingly. There’s a lot of eye candy to see with the various elemental attacks. The bosses are bigger and more intimidating in comparison to the legions of alien robots swarming around you.

The menu music is nice, but the gameplay background tracks are forgettable. The gunfire and explosions sound believable.

When using a controller, I found the controls to be a little awkward. There are two different control schemes: Steering and Directional. Be sure to try them both! Be warned that the control scheme isn’t transferred over with the cloud saves so be prepared to tweak the controls on each system you play on.

For $9.99 TerraTech Legion has a lot to offer. There are cosmetic DLC packs available if you wish to support the developers above and beyond purchasing the game. If you’re a fan of the original TerraTech game or enjoy Survivor-like games, you should check this one out.