In the first round, I picked up the flag and brought it back to my base, scoring one point for my team. In round two I fired a rocket that accidentally hit my hero from round one, stopping them from ever picking up the flag. Oops. My third round hero gave my first round hero a bubble to protect them from the rocket fired by my second round hero. I’ve now spent three rounds trying to collect one point, while my opponent effortlessly gathered the other three. In round four, my opponent kills my round three hero, stopping them from ever putting the bubble on my round one hero. Now, my round two hero is once again fragging my round one hero with a rocket. The only solution? Use my round five hero to shoot my round two hero before he fires the rocket at my round one hero. In response, my opponent uses his round five hero to kill my round one hero, take his flag, and completely sweep me, 4-0.
This is what the first few games of Lemnis Gate feel like. Ratloop Games new time loop, turn based hero shooter is unlike anything I’ve ever played before, and it completely fucked my brain - in a good way. I wish I could tell you the premise is simple, but Lemnis Gate is a complex beast that challenges your strategic mind as much as your technical skills. The good news is that, despite the sizable learning curve, it's just as fun to fail at as it is to master. You won’t need a degree in quantum physics to enjoy Lemnis Gate - but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Here’s the simplest way I can explain it: Lemnis Gate is a competitive, 5v5 shooter, and you are every player on your team. Each match plays out across five, turned-based rounds. In round one, you’ll choose a character and head out - unchallenged - into the battlefield to complete an objective. Objectives might be collecting a ball and returning it to your gate, shooting an object until it breaks, or taking a control point. When the round ends, it's your opponent's turn. Their turn also lasts for 25 seconds - the same 25 seconds you just played. They can see your character running around like the ghost in a Mario Kart time trial, and of course, they can kill you. In round two you’ll choose a different hero and play your turn alongside your round one hero. Rounds go back and forth like this until both sides have played five different characters, at which point the battlefield will almost certainly have devolved into utter chaos.
It’s completely overwhelming at first, but there’s a lot of joy to be found in those early hours of trial and error. Lemnis Gate is unforgiving, and one mistake will often cost you the entire game, but accidently shooting your past self or running into the line of fire from a previous round is always hilarious. It may seem like it wouldn’t be that hard to avoid bullets when you already know exactly when and where they’re going to fly, but incidental deaths are the number one way I lose rounds, even after a hundred games. As long as you’re not the type to beat yourself up about making lots of stupid mistakes, Lemnis Gate can be a lot of fun to fail at.
Once you wrap your mind around the time loop mechanic, the strategic potential becomes a lot more clear. How you plan around the objectives and react to your opponents turns is further complicated by the selection of characters. There are seven heroes, each with their own weapon, ability, and stats, and you can never choose the same character twice. Some simple strategies are immediately apparent: the speedster called Rush is great at getting ahead of opponents and completing objectives first with his dash ability, and the sniper called Striker is handy for picking off multiple targets in the later rounds, which can throw a massive wrench in your enemy’s plans. When you choose to use each hero is just as important as what you do with them, and no two matches are ever even remotely the same. The only consistent thing you’ll find is that everything can change in a single round, and every game is won or lost in the final round.
While Lemnis Gate nails the core concept, the actual execution is a bit rough around the edges. The gunplay doesn’t feel as sharp and precise as I’d like, which can lead to missing shots - particularly while sniping - that just feel like they should have landed. Navigating the arenas, which are brilliantly designed, can be a bit clunky thanks to odd geometry that’s easy to get stuck on. I’m also not completely sold on the progression system, which offers some basic color swap cosmetic options and the opportunity to rebalance your weapons by increasing or decreasing certain stats, like fire rate, stability, and magnification. I haven’t unlocked a ton of those options, but it doesn’t seem like these are particularly impactful choices. The characters themselves are also so bland that you would be forgiven for thinking they were all the same person with different loadouts, at least at first glance. The artstyle is clearly inspired by Titanfall and Apex Legends, but it simply doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself.
There are six different game modes available, which any one who’s worked on an online game will tell you is a lot of different queues to try to keep healthy - especially for an indie game like Lemnis Gate. All of the game modes are wildly different experiences. The 1v1 simultaneous mode is a deathmatch game where both players take all of their turns at the same time, which is a lot different from the slower, more strategic 1v1 turn based. There are also four different 2v2 modes: 2v2 turn based, teammates play together, enemies play together, and simultaneous. You can join the queue with all six modes selected, but nine out of ten games will be 1v1 deathmatch, with the tenth being a 1v1 simultaneous. I’ve tried to queue for only the four 2v2 modes several times and have never found a match. It seems like the game would have been better served with rotating game modes rather than so many seemingly empty queues.
My biggest problem with Lemnis Gate is the poor implementation of cross-play, which may sound like a very specific gripe, but I think that in this case it’s a pretty big deal. Lemnis Gate launched on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC via Steam and Game Pass. However, Steam and Game Pass players can only play together via cross-play, even though they’re both on PC. Right now, Lemnis Gate does not offer any way to party with friends on other platforms. If you want to cross-play, you’ll need all players to enter a join code. Since doing this excludes you from the regular matchmaking pool, it means you can only cross-play in private games.
This means that the only way to play a 2v2 game is with four friends. You can’t go in with one friend and matchmake into a 2v2 against someone else. You also can’t play ranked mode with a friend. If you have one friend to play with on another platform, your only options are 1v1 simultaneous or 1v1 turn based. I’ve had the most fun with Lemnis Gate while playing with friends, but this limitation makes it feel like we’re only getting a fraction of the game if we aren’t all using the same platform. A lot of people have Game Pass, but a lot of people prefer to own their games on Steam too, and it’s absurd that two people playing on PC can’t experience everything Lemnis Gate has to offer.
Despite these pain points, I’m enthusiastic for the future of Lemnis Gate. You can play for hours and never see the same map twice, and you can play for an eternity and never have two identical matches. There is so much depth and strategic potential that it feels like you could spend a lifetime learning the game and inventing new strats and synergies. The turn based, asymmetric nature of the game makes it feel like a competitive shooter for people that don’t like shooters, and I’m always impressed when a game can cast a net so far outside of its core audience. Unlike a lot of team-based indie games, Lemnis Gate can theoretically survive with a much smaller player base thanks to only having 1v1 and 2v2 game modes. Despite its inaccessible premise, Lemnis Gate has a lot going for it and I’m excited to see how deep the wormhole goes.
