Godbreakers: New AI-Themed Co-Op Hack'n'Slash Game Announced for PS5 and PC

Thunderful and To The Sky Announce Godbreakers, A New Four-Player Co-Op Hack'n'Slash Coming to PS5 and PC In 2025

Godbreakers is a new four-player co-op action hack'n'slash game from publisher Thunderful Games and its subsidiary studio, To The Sky, and it'll be arriving on PS5 and PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store later this year. But you can play it right now if you want to, thanks to a demo currently available on Steam. Godbreakers sets players against an unbound and presumably evil artificial intelligence called Monad, whose legions of creatures you'll defeat by absorbing their powers and turning their own strength back on them. The reveal trailer also shows how movement and learning enemy patterns seem key to gameplay, especially if you're taking on the challenge on your own. "As the first title for our studio, we wanted to create a game that feels fast, fluid and fun, where every moment is a chance to unleash chaos alongside your friends," said chief executive officer and executive producer at To The Sky, Jugo Mirkovic, in a press release. "We've poured years worth of knowledge into crafting the best gameplay experience possible in Godbreakers, and we're so excited to finally share it with the world." Though there's no release date currently set for Godbreakers, the fact that there's a demo already available when Thunderful and To The Sky are announcing the game is a strong sign that they'll be able to hit its 2025 release window. Hopefully we'll have an official release date to look forward to soon.

Godbreakers Preview: To The Sky is looking to deliver a hack 'n' slash haven

We've had an early look at the upcoming action game being published by Thunderful and launching later this year on PC and PS5. You may have seen that publisher Thunderful has just unveiled a new project that it is helping make a reality, coming from the Swedish developer To The Sky. Known as Godbreakers, this is an action-packed hack 'n' slash that is best in a cooperative format and which revolves around players hunting down and fighting powerful bosses using a slate of abilities and differently-styled character archetypes. On top of the announcement that was just made, I have had the luxury of already being able to test the game in the form of a short demo build that you can now experience for yourself via Steam. For starters, it's worth mentioning that this demo build only gives a basic taste of the overall product that To The Sky intends to debut down the line. It included a short sniff at the narrative and the worldbuilding behind it, it offered the opportunity to enter one biome and fight a small variety of enemy types before battling one of many eventual bosses, all using a couple of archetype options. The point is, it's easy to come away from the demo build and feel that the game is a bit one-dimensional at the moment, and that was something I noticed too after 30 minutes of playtime, as it was clear that this is very much a product that is about dropping into a level and then bashing and slicing your way through hordes of enemies, with the gameplay cycle not exactly going much further beyond that. However, I will leave this point here as no doubt the full game will provide more avenues to expand and differentiate the gameplay. As for the story, the very basics of it revolve around the player becoming a hero that is tasked with destroying an artificially intelligent being of unbound potential, known as the Monad, all under orders handed out by celestial beings. This leads to a story where you travel around different biomes and hunt down different bosses to weaken and eventually destroy the Monad. As far as a story goes, it's serviceable. There are elements that draw you in and make you ask questions, queries where you ponder how the world has come about. Instead of having a traditional narrative thread to follow, this is then unpacked through what are effectively data logs and different codex entries that drip-feed narrative, which should be enough for the doting fan but might prove to be a bit too nonchalant for the masses. But this is also a fine approach because Godbreakers has a very, very clear gameplay first structure. It's evident right away that To The Sky has put a massive emphasis on getting the mechanics perfect and highly refined, and that shows in practice as Godbreakers plays very smoothly, with core creative choices that will appease experienced hack 'n' slash fans. Whether it's a basic yet easily chainable combat system that's simple to pick up, hard to master, or the fact that you can dash to cancel strikes and abilities, it's these little elements that shows that To The Sky understands what makes a great combat suite that feels rewarding and engaging to play. I'd also state that the archetype design is strong too, although this does also come from testing simply two options, but those two options didn't just have unique abilities and weapons, they fundamentally played in different ways. For example, the Lancer was a spear-wielding rapid and fluid option that excelled with fast strikes and agile movement all while the Pillar was a bulky ram-using heavy-hitting and more sluggish option, the type of archetype perfect for hefty strikes and big damage all while risking taking hits along the way. Again, these combined with a decent collection of enemy types that each attack in different ways (be it head on, from range, from beneath the ground, the list goes on) means that combat does feel rewarding. Now the veteran hack 'n' slash players out there might be wondering exactly what To The Sky is doing in regards to buildcrafting, and I'm happy to report that there is a broad system in place. Essentially, as you defeat enemies, mini-bosses, and bosses, you'll be handed items that you can activate and add to your build. These might be increasing critical damage, improving how much you heal when consuming a health potion, adding chain lightning or poison damage to attacks, and they're served up in a Hades-like way where you almost have to decide what you want to do with your build to ensure that you're not constantly replacing powerful upgrades with the next shiny thing that appears. There are two main types of upgrade, with one fitting into the five core upgrade slots, and the rest being attribute-like enhancements that can be stacked if you find more in the wild or in merchant stores in levels. There is additional buildcrafting to introduce too in the form of Echoes, but these were not active in the demo build. Lastly, anyone who has taken a couple of minutes to look at Godbreakers will notice that it has quite a Hyper Light appearance to it, and that does mean the environment and level design, and even the enemy designs are very striking, with plenty of colours and visual effects dotting the screen at once. Again though, Godbreakers will live and die with how it can continue to build on its core structure and design, challenging players and encouraging them to improve and learn from their mistakes. We'll see whether To The Sky achieves this in the near future as we see more from Godbreakers leading up to its launch sometime later this year on PC and PS5.