The Ascent Cyber Heist – Back to the Beautifully Filthy Arcology

With The Ascent Cyber Heist, the cyberpunk ARPG gets a story DLC and plenty of updates make the visually impressive game even more interesting today

It’s been close to a year since The Ascent came out for PlayStation PS4/PS5, XBox and PC on Steam. It’s an action-heavy twin-stick shooter with a strong story and all sorts of RPG elements, in which we look down on a beautifully rancid and messed-up cyberpunk world from an oblique angle. In addition, there are a lot of conversations, often in cut-scenes, and a large world that hides some small and large secrets from us.

Along with that, there are plenty of nasty thugs, gun-toting gangs, and technologically advanced corporate soldiers roaming the city, making our journey as cyber-mercenaries through the world of the Arcology not too easy. Flavored well, with some pretty impressive graphics and rich sound, and there you have it, a cyberpunk action RPG of the better kind.

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The Ascent – One Year Later

On the release date of July the 29th, 2021, I wrote a detailed review of The Ascent, which you may want to check out if you don’t know the cyberpunk role-playing game yet. In The Ascent you don’t have to walk alone, multiplayer is supported and now even with Steam Remote Play, so you can invite a friend into your game, even if that person doesn’t own the game.

The Ascent looked fantastic from the start, in a cyberpunkish filthy and broken way. The gameplay, once you got used to the controls, was also superb and the story was gripping and varied. However, it was somewhat plagued by bugs and gaps, both in level design and in game features and operation.

But since then, the developers at Neon Giant have put a lot more work into the game, and there have been a total of 12 major patches and numerous hotfixes. Today, many of the serious problems have been fixed, unfortunately not all. However, The Ascent finally plays as well as it looks. And in the meantime, almost all side characters have been given voice-overs, making the three-dimensional cyberpunk city even more immersive.

The Ascent DLC – Cyber Heist

Since then, a few months and a few patches have passed, and just recently a major story DLC came out with “Cyber Heist”. For $9.99 it offers an additional main story and several side quests, some new map areas and five previously unavailable weapons await our Indents, as the inhabitants of the arcology are called in Ascent. Of course, all of this can be used in multiplayer as well.

The Ascent Cyber Heist Trailer Video

Cyber Heist DLC – Opinion and Conclusion

For the base price of $9.99 €, you get about three to five hours of new story with The Heist, a new area in the city and two special melee weapons as well as variants of ranged weapons. The enemy hordes get a bit bigger and the weapon upgrades numerous. For me, it’s not a standout DLC, but for fans of the game it’s a nice expansion and definitely worth a look in a sale or bundle for any ARPG player or fans of some isometric action-bombing.

For newcomers, The Ascent Cyber Edition is also a bundle that includes the base game and all three previous paid DLCs. However, the two smaller DLCs are more cosmetic in nature. But if there should be a good discount on the bundle, that’s certainly a good option to purchase the entire game in one go.

By the way, I also tested the game extensively on the new Valve Steamdeck, and The Ascent as well as the Cyber Heist DLC play very well on the handheld.

The Ascent Screenshots – Ingame Pictures

Click or tap on the image for a larger view.
In the enlarged view, you can scroll right and left on the edges

Links and Sources

Full Review The Ascent

The Ascent Steam Page

The Ascent Website

The Ascent Twitter

The Ascent Discord Server