Imperatum

Imperatum is a cyberpunk action RPG set in a distant future where humanity’s galactic empire is threatened by a hostile alien race known as the Spoox. Five centuries after space colonization began, players take on the role of warriors fighting to stop the invasion that emerged through a mysterious black hole. The game features hack-and-slash combat, character development with 48 combinable skills, loot collection, crafting systems, and isometric tactical gameplay across thirteen single-player levels.

Imperatum: Review

In the vast cosmos of video games, some titles blaze like supernovas, remembered for generations. Others flicker and fade, their brief existence a cautionary tale of ambition, potential, and the harsh realities of development. Imperatum, a 2017 sci-fi action RPG from the fledgling studio Pro Social Games, is indisputably the latter—a game whose legacy is not one of glory, but of a fascinating, flawed experiment lost to the void.

Introduction

The action RPG genre is a cathedral built upon pillars of loot, progression, and visceral combat, dominated by the high fantasy of Diablo and the grimdark of Path of Exile. For years, a segment of the community has clamored for a competent sci-fi entry to break the mold, to trade swords and sorcery for plasma rifles and psionics. Imperatum arrived not as a messiah to answer these prayers, but as a ghost—a technically troubled, conceptually intriguing, and ultimately forgettable specter that serves as a stark reminder that a novel setting alone cannot carry a game. Its thesis is one of unfulfilled promise: a title with glimmers of innovative ideas, particularly in its skill-crafting system, but so mired in technical incompetence and design blandness that it vanished from the collective consciousness almost as soon as it appeared.

Development History & Context

Imperatum was the debut and, effectively, the final release from Pro Social Games LLC. The studio’s name itself hints at a unique, almost philosophical ethos, one that extended into the game’s very design with its controversial “Pro Social and Health Mechanics.” Released into the crowded marketplace of August 2017, the game entered a landscape where indie titles faced an unprecedented level of competition, not just from AAA blockbusters but from a thriving ecosystem of highly polished, community-driven ARPGs like Grim Dawn.

The vision, as stated on its Steam page, was clear: to deliver the “core ARPG ‘trinity’ mechanics of fast-paced combat, deep character customization and tons of loot” within a “vast Sci-Fi Universe.” The developers, self-described as “former professional gamers and AAA developers,” sought to fill a perceived void. However, the technological constraints of a small team are evident. While the system requirements were modest—asking for a Dual-Core CPU and a GeForce 8800—the game’s technical execution failed to live up to even that low bar. It was a project born of passion but seemingly rushed to market, perhaps a victim of the then-prevalent Early Access model’s pressures, though it launched as a full release. Its development context is one of a small team aiming for the stars but being grounded by the gravitational pull of technical debt and an inability to polish a fundamentally shaky foundation.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The narrative of Imperatum is, in a word, skeletal. Set five centuries into humanity’s future, the plot concerns a galactic empire threatened by the “Spoox,” an aggressive alien race emerging from a mysterious black hole dubbed “the veil.” The player is an unnamed, unvoiced agent thrust into a first mission to investigate this phenomenon and save civilization.

The critical failure of Imperatum‘s narrative is not its derivative nature—a Starship Troopers-esque bug hunt is a perfectly serviceable B-movie premise—but its execution. As one reviewer noted, the story is “fragmented by the crashes and even then it doesn’t seem to be doing much new.” Key plot details are relegated to the Steam store page rather than being integrated into the game itself. The player character lacks any personality, name, or motivation beyond being a cipher for destruction. The world feels inert; the colonies you’re meant to save are mere backdrops for combat arenas, devoid of life, history, or characters to interact with.

Thematically, it flirts with classic sci-fi concepts: the arrogance of empire, the fear of the unknown, and the fragility of communication. The “veil” blocking signals is a potent metaphor for isolation. Yet, these themes are never explored. They are set dressing, mentioned in a blurb and then forgotten in the repetitive grind of killing identical alien hordes. The narrative exists solely as a pretext for the action, and even in that limited role, it fails to provide a compelling reason to care.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

This is where Imperatum‘s dual nature is most apparent: a game with one genuinely innovative idea buried under a mountain of flawed execution.

Core Loop & Combat: The gameplay is standard ARPG fare: explore linear, isometric maps, kill hordes of enemies, collect a torrent of loot, and develop your character. The combat, billed as “intense,” is described by players as “bland” and “an endurance test rather than tactical positioning.” Enemy AI is basic, often consisting of swarming the player in overwhelming numbers with an “unreasonably high aggro range.” The balance is wildly inconsistent, with players reporting moments where “enemies collapse like wet paper” followed by frustrating segments where “you’ll die, again and again, as you chisel away at the same horde for several minutes.” Melee combat was universally panned as “useless” compared to ranged options, a critical failure for a genre built on build diversity.

The Shining Gem: Skill Crafting System: Imperatum‘s one true innovation was its “active-passive” skill system. With 48 unique skills, players could slot any skill into another, designating one as active and the other as a passive modifier. This allowed for creative, synergistic combinations—a fire bomb could be modified to also heal the player, or a three-shot burst could be made to explode on impact. This system was a clear, albeit less elegant, precursor to the kind of deep customization found in games like Transistor. Tragically, this brilliant concept was hamstrung by the game’s abysmal tutorial, which failed to explain how the system worked. Many players never even found the menu to engage with it, rendering its potential utterly wasted.

Loot & Inventory: The game delivered on its promise of “tons of loot.” Enemies dropped a “metric ton of loot like they were millionaire piñatas.” A genuinely praised feature was the on-the-fly recycling system, which allowed players to break down unwanted gear into crafting materials instantly without returning to a vendor—a quality-of-life feature more modern ARPGs would be wise to adopt.

The “Pro Social” Mechanics: Perhaps the most bizarre system was the “Healthy Player” mechanic. The game would reward players with bonuses for taking five-minute breaks after every 55 minutes of play. While well-intentioned, it was seen as a gimmicky and out-of-place addition that most players ignored.

Technical Failures: The most damning aspect of the gameplay was its technical state. Reviewers reported consistent crashes, save file corruption, and progress-wiping bugs. The absence of a manual save feature meant these crashes were catastrophic. Animations were described as “garbage,” with characters floating across the terrain and wielding weapons with jarringly poor motion. These issues made the game, at times, literally unplayable.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Imperatum presents a world of missed opportunities. The “vast Sci-Fi Universe” feels anything but. Environments are bland and repetitive, consisting largely of open, rocky wastes and generic industrial corridors that create an “illusion of open space” but are, in reality, constrictive “hallways” bordered by impassable terrain.

The art direction is competent only in static screenshots. The 3D models are passable, but the animation quality utterly destroys any sense of immersion. The sound design follows a similar pattern: a forgettable but inoffensive soundtrack is undermined by laughable weapon sound effects, such as a plasma rifle that reportedly sounded like a “baby hiccuping.”

The cyberpunk/dark sci-fi setting had potential, but the world feels dead. There are no cities teeming with life, no intriguing factions, no sense of a living, breathing galaxy. It is a painted backdrop for a shooting gallery, devoid of the atmosphere and detail that define memorable game worlds.

Reception & Legacy

Upon release, Imperatum was met with a resounding shrug of indifference punctuated by frustration. It holds a “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam based on user reviews and a measly 60% score from the sole critic review on MobyGames. The Hooked Gamers review perfectly encapsulated its reception: “Unless it has one little niche than can catch even a small following, the name Imperatum will not ring any bells even a few months from now.”

This prediction proved accurate. The game failed commercially and critically. Its planned ports to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch (all listed as “TBA”) never materialized. Pro Social Games faded into obscurity, leaving Imperatum as their sole monument.

Its legacy is twofold. First, it serves as a historical footnote: a case study in how a single good idea is worthless without the execution to support it, and how technical incompetence can sink an otherwise promising project. Second, its skill-combination system remains a brilliant concept waiting to be adopted and properly implemented by a more competent studio. In this, Imperatum is less a game to be played and more an artifact to be studied—a blueprint for what could have been.

Conclusion

Imperatum is not the worst game ever made. It is, in many ways, something worse: it is forgettable. It is a game that arrived with a modicum of promise and a genuinely innovative mechanic, only to bury it under a heap of technical failures, bland design, and a complete lack of personality. It is a lesson in the importance of polish, tutorial design, and narrative engagement. For the handful of players who experienced it, Imperatum is remembered not for its sci-fi aspirations, but for its crashes, its janky animations, and its one brilliant system that it never allowed anyone to properly use. It is a ghost in the machine of video game history—a faint echo of a good idea, lost to the void of what might have been.