Games releasing in early access are nothing new at this point, and for many titles it means we end up getting a far superior product than we would with a standard release. It’s hard to imagine something like Dead Cells or Phasmaphobia being quite so polished and packed with content without that prolonged period of early adopters helping to iron out those initial issues, but does early access work for all games? As a single player Metroidvania, Biogun might not be my first choice for a release in early access, but it’s hard to deny the quality of the game.

There’s a crisis in the world of Biogun that is almost too horrible to imagine. Dogs are under threat of extinction thanks to the horrendous Dooper virus. In a last ditch effort to save canine kind, Bek has created a microscopic pig-like creature that he’s injecting into his dog to find out how to beat back this viral threat. You’ll be the one playing as the ridiculously tiny pig on this adventure through your adorable dog’s body. This is a uniquely mini adventure with massive consequences.

It turns out when a dog is infected by the Dooper Virus a whole load of miniature monsters take up residence inside them, but thankfully you have all the firepower you’ll need to take them out. You can control exactly where you fire with the right stick, and blast out your trusty laser with the right trigger. To ensure you don’t always have to keep a thumb in charge of aiming, if you let go of the stick you’ll keep firing in the last direction pointed too. This is really handy when navigating the treacherous tubes of the canine body, and ensures you can focus on dodging about.

Even in the early hours of Biogun there is a massive variety of viral villains and deadly fleshy traps packed into the rooms of the body. All manner of creepy crawly nasties and sparking nerves are more than happy to exterminate you, and you’ll need to keep your wits about you to survive. When you do get hit, you can thankfully heal at the cost of a chunk of energy, which regenerates as you hit enemies with your blaster. It doesn’t take too long to refuel your energy so you’ll get used to constantly healing, which is a godsend in the game’s tricky boss fights.

The bosses of Biogun are easily the part of the game I enjoyed the most, each sporting their own fun gimmick to take advantage of and an array of deadly attacks to try and avoid. The first I faced didn’t do a whole lot of attacking itself and instead unleashed huge waves of bugs that would charge around madly to deal damage, which meant they took a lot of focus off damaging the one spawning them. Another boss was just a massive bouncing ball that sped up when damaged to almost comical levels. The creativity of the bosses is just wonderful, and there are so many of them lurking around the body.

Beating these bosses unlocks all manner of traditional Metroidvania abilities that’ll help you get around, from the ability to hover through the air for extra hangtime across bigger gaps, to the ability to add extra firepower to your projectiles by pumping them full of energy. Using new abilities to access new areas or find hidden collectibles is as satisfying as you’d hope for a Metroidvania, and you get handed them at a lovely pace.

The amount of different shiny bits and bobs to collect in Biogun is impressive, and everything you do gather feels worth collecting. There are useful things like chips which you can equip at save points to power yourself up, like the one I used which gave me a little robot buddy that attacked the nearest enemy. There are also some collectibles that are a little less necessary but still a welcome addition, like the silly little accessories you can wear while jumping around the dog innards.

The developers of Biogun have said that the game is in early access so they can add more side content to flesh it out, but honestly the amount of optional extras felt great to me already. I picked up numerous side quests in the first hour of playing alone, some of which seemed particularly massive in scope. There are lots of little things that make the game feel feature complete already present too, like the map download points that can be upgraded to make them more effective and the hub area with stores to spend your currency on.

When playing Biogun in its current form no part of me felt like I was playing an early access game. With Wonderful Combat, great upgrades, and a serious level of polish, Biogun already feels like a game that fans of the genre need to know about. If you want to wait for the ultimate anatomical experience then waiting for version 1.0 is more than understandable, but if you’re craving a top tier Metroidvania and can’t wait any longer, then picking Biogun up now is something I highly recommend.

Biogun is in PC early access via Steam, now.

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