Thank you to Kvltgames for sending us this game to review!

The Great Rebellion is a rogue-lite platformer action shooter developed by Kvltgames. Taking place in a highly satirized future in which a globalist elite have conquered and enslaved Europe, the game serves as both a political commentary and an enjoyable game. Being a platformer run and gun, the primary objective is to avoid enemy attacks, defeat enemies, stay alive through the end of the stage, and then clear a boss to advance to the next level. By incorporating rogue-lite mechanics, it also has randomly generated levels, numerous enemy types to encounter as the game progresses, and a slew of weapons and items to assist you across your runs in the fight for freedom. This makes it comparable to games such as Revita and Neon Abyss, some games I’ve personally played and enjoyed. But how does The Great Rebellion stack up in comparison?

The game begins by introducing you to Human 10.28, an inconsequential cog in the machine who’s decided he’s fed up with the world around him. After being declared a dissenter and nearly killed, he’s saved by a strange woman and taken to an odd hideout (more on that later). After being armed and given a mission to take down the globalist forces that have conquered and enslaved Europe, you travel back to dismantle the system piecemeal. Enemies and bosses introduce different aspects of bullet hell-like gameplay, with some enemies spamming you with bullets, some locking on like a sniper, some shooting a laser across a chunk of the screen, and some emitting toxic gas that lingers for a few seconds. Two key elements to countering this is positioning and mobility: keeping track of Human 10.28 while you’re trying to ice enemies ensures you won’t be caught by a stray bullet, and staying on the move ensures enemies can’t drive you into a corner. This is also where your dash comes into play, as instead of being stuck to running and gunning, you can dash in any direction to get a split second of invulnerability that allows you to close the distance on an enemy or tank an unavoidable attack.

But skill alone won’t carry you far, and inevitably you’ll need bigger guns. You start with a basic blaster that can hold its own on the first level’s enemies, but you’d find it quickly outpaced on later levels, and you’d struggle to clear any boss with it. As you kill enemies, you might find a better weapon you can swap to for a boost, while slowly building up currency as you clear rooms. There are two main forms of currency in this game: credits, found from destroyed containers or dropped by enemies, and negative social credit, awarded by the system upon performing actions it considers rebellious. Credits can be used to purchase temporary buffs, healing items, new weapons, and other miscellaneous pickups, while negative social credit can be exchanged for permanent upgrades such as increased health, buffing your dash, allowing you to carry more weapons at a time, and so on. This gives the player two different rogue-lite systems to manage: one for mid-run buffs, and one for permanent character improvements. Items bought in the shop might help you clear a level, but character improvements will help you clear the game. NPCs found inside levels can be rescued, bringing them back to your base for buffs, usually at the expense of negative social credit. You may also encounter historical figures as companions, such as Joan of Arc or King Arthur, who will give you temporary buffs or abilities for as long as their health lasts. These rogue-lite elements, combined with tight controls, fun enemies, and a wide variety of weapons made sure I had a fun time from start to finish.

Most stories involving futuristic authoritarian states tend towards cyberpunk and dystopian settings, and this game is no different. The world is presented as sterile and machine-like, both visually and sonically, with the game always demonstrating this through its enemies, backgrounds, level design, and music. Levels take place in apartment supercomplexes, military facilities, shopping malls, and so on. Giant banners of ads scroll across the background, or high-rises fill the horizon, or strange machines dot the walls while robotic creatures and contraptions race towards you. The spritework for the backgrounds especially are incredible, and are easily the most inspired part of the presentation. Enemy sprites are also very good with interesting designs, and the animations for most actions are good as well. Sprites for characters, weapons and items, and foreground tilesets, however, are a bit disappointing. They’re still good, but just a bit bland and lacking in character. This extends to the sound effects, which I’d say range from good to boring, and the difference in quality between them makes it feel a bit uneven. In contrast, the game has a phenomenal, pulsing soundtrack, with a mixture of ambient, synthwave, orchestral, and more that keep pushing you through any challenge.

But this unevenness is my main complaint with The Great Rebellion: it just isn’t very original. It is still a fun game, and it has some good elements, but it doesn’t excel at any one thing to make it stand out among its contemporaries. And that zeroes in on its severe lack of identity. As it is trying to make a statement with its political commentary (which I will shortly get into, believe me), most of its identity lies in subversion. This isn’t just a rogue-lite shooter—no, this is a BASED rogue-lite shooter. The story is nonsensical and feels like an elaborate greentext, where some enemies have flashes of inspiration, then at other times be fat people on mobility scooters or literal soyjaks. The first level advertises things like “Toddlers in Drag!”, “GroomerZ”, “Insect Burger”, "Sissy Hypno", and several ads solely pairing white women and black men. Bosses include such characters as the Yass Queen, a naked, obese tanned-skin musician who attacks with her extremities; the Transitioner, a demonically-appearing machine with makeup and an attached skirt; the Factchecker, an AI machine that asks you to answer a series of wrong-speak questions; and so on.

And since the above paragraph has touched on part of it, let me address the elephant in the room. Glancing at the Steam page, you’d assume this to just be an anti-establishment game like many before it (and certainly many after it). But once you’re actually in-game, it’s very clear that this isn’t just anti-establishment: it’s in support of white nationalism. Now, because this has become such a dog whistle for something as simple as liking hotdogs or country music, I want to clarify that it is actual, legitimate white nationalism. The entire identity of the game surrounds the establishment’s push for anti-racism, persecuting things that have been identified as white culture and thus harmful, or otherwise being negative to white culture in general. At this point, I think we can all shake hands on the fact that this has happened—the disagreement simply comes upon whether or not that’s a good thing. The Great Rebellion’s single-finger rebuttal is clear: absolutely not. You are not just cog-in-the-machine Human 10.28, you are “the son [...] of knights, kings, explorers, philosophers, conquerors, and artists!”

But in addition to the setting, the game features a lot of mythological figures from history that are now commonly associated with white culture. To start, at the beginning of the game you’re miraculously saved from execution by Europa, a floating blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with innate magical abilities, pulling upon Greek mythology. She mentions that your dash ability is a gift specifically from Hermes, the god from Greek mythology. Other figures are present such as Herodotus, the Greek historian, and Philosophos, a literal embodiment of Greek philosophers. Europa guards the Waldgang, the “Forest Passage”, a forested location deep in the mountains where the rebellion is based. This refers to Ernst Jünger, specifically his text Der Waldgang, which saw the Waldgang (forest passage) as a metaphor for the tests modern society places upon oneself that they must emerge from. The Waldgang as a concept draws to mind pagan and Norse mythology, and other aspects of the game encourage this as well, such as you being revived after each death at the “Fountain of Youth” surrounded by two “Priestesses.” Though there are some Christian elements to the game, such as a priest named “Seraphim” adorned in black robes with the Orthodox cross, who gives you general biblical advice and offers to bless you in God’s name, which grants you some negative social credit. Controversial political figures such as Sam Hyde and Stonetoss are also present in the game as companion NPCs, with the latter also having other characters or art in the game.

But that’s without getting into the moral warnings. As alluded to, the game is filled with very controversial topics and depicts some mature subjects such as pedophilia dog whistles, transgenderism, white nationalism, and more. There is also some gross humor/commentary in the game, such as the Transitioner explicitly saying they’re there to groom you, and “it’s not going to lick itself”, while a computer earlier in the game notes that Human 10.28 has a preference for slimmer biological females, so it downloads plus sized homosexual porn to his phone (not depicted, thankfully). There is some swearing present, as well as strong nudity. The Yass Queen, for all intents and purposes, is a nude woman who puts it all out there. Even though she is satirized and meant to be comically unattractive, her attacks feature her body flailing around, which I’d still consider strong nudity. Violence is also expected, as you’re fighting enemies with weapons. Additionally, though I take no personal stance on it, generative AI was used for some art elements as a basis before apparently being redrawn in their pixel art style. For all these reasons, I find this game difficult to recommend morally.

Before I summarize my thoughts, I will clarify that these are indeed my personal thoughts and opinions, and not representative of CCG. Martin Luther once said, “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” I have despised media like God’s Not Dead all my life as I believe they do nothing to advance the faith of Christians, and do nothing to outreach to non-believers. I’d go so far as to say they do the opposite and push people away from the faith, only serving to make people who already agreed shake their heads and think, “Those darn evil atheists, I’m glad we’re so good unlike them.” Well, that’s The Great Rebellion. It’s God’s Not Dead for wignats. It’s plainly evident what’s stamped on the cover, and likely explains why Steam achievements note only 35% of players beating the first boss, and only 12% even defeating the final boss in a game that took me roughly 5 hours to beat. This game explains why white culture is good to the same degree that modern society explains it to be evil, or in other words, not at all. It does nothing to convince onlookers of its commentary, and only serves to make those who already agree with it nod and go, “That’s based.” And in my opinion, in an era of growing division and hatred, something that serves only as provocative, reactionary content does no good to fix the problem.

All in all, The Great Rebellion is a game unlike any other, coming from a side of the aisle that rarely has a say in art. With good gameplay, a jamming soundtrack, and some nice visuals, you’re bound to find some fun out of its 5+ hour runtime, though I personally found it lacking in originality and cohesive identity, with subpar sound effects, and the added baggage of incredibly divisive political commentary. But if none of the above have put you off, I still recommend the game, though perhaps consider waiting for a sale.