Last Man Sitting turns office misery into a roguelite power fantasy
Sunset Overdrive is back - this time trapped in a rolling office chair.
Recently, I had a really hard time playing any type of game. Even when I got some of the latest releases like Ghost of Yotei or Donkey Kong Bananza, I was just in some sort of funk, especially knowing the amount of time I have to put in. This is why demos and betas are great; it’s not much of a commitment, but you still get to try something and experience a new world someone created. Two weekends ago, my brother and I watched PC Gaming Show’s Most Wanted Showcase. Although it felt like it was oversaturated with a certain genre of games (I’m looking at you, Survival games), a couple of them caught our attention, and that includes Last Man Sitting.
Honestly, when I first saw the game, I didn’t know what I was comprehending. But once I saw the character grind on the rail with the chair, my neurons fired and immediately associated it with Sunset Overdrive. For people who don’t know Sunset Overdrive, it’s this awesome parkour open world apocalypse game where you fight these monsters with guns you can customize, and you can grind rails and wall run all around the city. Like Tony Hawk games and Infamous mixed together. As for Last Man Sitting, the scope is different, but its format is closer to roguelite games like Hades.
The beta gave access to the single-player experience against computer enemies, which was fun enough. Looking ahead, the developers told us to expect online multiplayer modes in a later beta test, which will be very hectic, I’m sure. The premise is simple: you play as an employee in a white-collar office job, but not just doing boring tasks. Instead, you’re glued to a chair, fighting the devices you’re supposed to use. Scoot around in comfy office chairs and try to destroy them with a big minigun. This rougelite means every playthrough will be different, even on the same level, and with each win or loss, you can increase your character’s power for next time. Equip upgrades, unlock more slots, and choose different chairs, weapons, and characters (each has unique special attacks). You start with the character featured in the trailer, and as soon as you start, things keep moving until the end.
Starting a level feels like non-stop adrenaline. You’re immediately moving around and having the minigun shoot out unlimited bullets, and making sure you destroy as many enemies/robots as possible. The more enemies you kill, the more you level up. Each time you level up, you can choose between three new power-ups. You can choose to reroll, letting you get a new set of power-ups. What I like about the power-ups is that each has its own level. So one offer can be Level 2, and you can bring it up to 3. The highest level most of them reach is level 5, which transforms power-ups into very powerful items that can support you a lot throughout the playthrough. Each level for the power-ups really made me realize how awesome roguelites are, because leveling up and seeing the new thing you unlocked can get so addictive, and how that changes the entire gameplay for you.
The power-up that saved me almost all the time was the shoulder turret. It went crazy shooting in every direction I had my back turned to. Once I upgraded the power-up to level 5, it got three more torrents, and it shot in every direction, dealing extra damage. Other power-ups that shook up the stage were elements like wind, fire, and ice - especially the lighting and the ability to electrocute everyone just by moving around in your chair. Yeah, not only can your chair get power-ups, but the bullets you shoot can do similar elemental attacks like that, which can do so much damage, especially to the mini-bosses, where you can see their health bar go down very quickly.
On top of your weapons, chair upgrades, and power-ups was the special attack ability you had. What I liked was that it didn’t have a long cooldown period to use it again, which is how things usually are in some games. The first special attack you start off with is like a shockwave blast that does a good amount of damage and pushes the enemies back. It helped a lot when the robots were trying to jump you because they knew they had the numbers. But my absolute favorite ability so far that made me feel like the Hulk was the Slam Dunk. The ability itself is great, but when I realized you could power up your special attack, the robots knew they had messed up immensely by trying to face me. There was this power-up that creates these spikey rocks that do a lot of damage - and that helped tremendously because it was like a one-hit kill attack that not only got me out of tight situations but created a shield of rocks around me.
By the middle of your playthrough, once you get so many great power-ups that stack up with one another, your framerate will drop crazily. The last level I played for the beta, I had lighting from moving around on the chair, but also when I shot bullets that also ricocheted to other enemies, that also froze them, but I also had explosive bullets and my turret shooting, and… yeah, you see where this is going. A lot was happening on the screen, and it was so fast and furious (ha). What I loved about each level/mission you played was the music, which sounded pretty good and brought back memories of playing Sunset Overdrive - that game had some great rock music. So imagine all of that mixed in together - you’re practically in your own overstimulated flow state.
Throughout the playthrough, you don’t just fight one group of enemies the entire time. Mini bosses do come in to shake things up, and can be defeated pretty easily, even on hard mode (I wish I played on insane and see how that did for me!). Additionally, levels throw dynamic challenges your way. For example, “Termination Time” creates red fiery walls to close in on everything from every direction into a single small location where you have to make sure you’re in the safe zone—sort of like the storm in Fortnite—while still fighting for your life. Another level effect called “Dance Monkey, Dance” had me dodging all these bombs that landed directly on me and took a crazy amount of damage. So you had to lock in and dodge not only the enemies but the bombs, and try to move as fast as possible. You’d better hope you didn’t choose power-ups that inadvertently slowed you down as well.
Not only that, but if you really want legendary power-ups, completing quests as you grind through the level and dodge enemies is your best bet. Some quests are straightforward, like destroying crates or popping balloons. But I always failed at protecting the executives—they died almost instantly as enemies swarmed them, and they spread out, struggling to survive. Regardless, completing a quest delivers clutch power-ups. You can also obtain standard abilities at the vending machine. If you racked up kills and forgot to check earlier, you may end up stacking upgrades for a while, which honestly made me think the game was glitching.
There were three levels in this beta, and each level you complete, you open up a box and get a new reward, which is usually a new chair upgrade that can range from common to legendary. After finishing a level, you get to see your stats and how you did compared to the rest of the players. What I liked the most was seeing the percentage improvement you made. I was 90% better than everyone else on the final level on hard! That encouragement made me want to take on higher difficulties to get a legendary chair upgrade. By the end of the beta, I had three slots equipped. The best perks that saved my life throughout the levels were a perk that healed me when enemies were near me (which was almost always), my special attack ability activating twice, which did some great damage all the time, and doing 30% poison damage to nearby enemies. With the healing and poison, I ended up having a double-edged sword advantage at the start of every level.
The final level had an actual boss (not a mini-boss that randomly popped up) after completing it, which was dope to experience. It was a coffee machine robot that was on the loose, and it was awesome going against it. It even had different forms, and it was really trying to reach its final form, but got its ass beat badly. I ended up unlocking another character with her own special attack ability, and I wish I’d tried playing with her before I went to bed. As you can see, I am locked into this game way more than I thought. I have played roguelites before (like Hades), but I had a hard time grasping the concept at first. But the idea of a laid-back, fun game with elements of roguelikes really got me hooked in the genre again, and it honestly got my mood back up to play video games again.
Games like Last Man Sitting are why I love video games. You never know what you’ll enjoy until you jump in and try it. That’s why demos and betas matter - without them, I probably wouldn’t have touched this game and would still be staring at my backlog. This experience eased me back into a medium I had almost lost touch with, thanks to its wackiness and engaging gameplay. It reminded me to take chances on shorter, stranger games. I’m hoping to play more Last Man Sitting in the future, because it gave my brain a sense of serenity despite the constant chaos.