Slave Zero X on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Slave Zero X is a stylish 2.5D character action game set in the biopunk world of Slave Zero (1999). Run & Slash your way through a dystopian future in this character action game which will resonate with fans of Devil May Cry, Strider, and Guilty Gear.
Slave Zero X is a spectacle fighter, hack and slash and beat 'em up game
developed by Poppy Works
and published by Ziggurat.
Released on February 21st 2024 is available only on Windows
in 14 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Spanish - Latin America, Korean, Portuguese - Portugal, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Traditional Chinese and Hindi.
It has received 366 reviews of which 287 were positive and 79 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.4 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Slave Zero X into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel i3 2100 / AMD FX 6300
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 (2 GB) / AMD R7 260X (2 GB)
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 6 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Slave Zero X is a game that speaks to me. It’s a masterpiece. It has almost everything that I can ask for from a game. I never thought that someday, someone would purchase a dormant IP and turn it into something extraordinary. I’m really glad how Slave Zero X turned out and introduced me to the amazing series that I’ve been missing out on. It acts as a prequel to the original Slave Zero, which came out back in 1999, and it expands and enhances the lore and the universe in an amazing way. Instead of a mecha shooter, it’s a side-scrolling, stylish hack and slash with PSX aesthetics that heavily resemble Strider 2 and Guilty Gear. The gameplay derives a lot from the Devil May Cry series, which is a good thing, and it was the main reason why it caught my attention in the first place. As I’ve just mentioned, it plays pretty much like Devil May Cry. The main purpose is to get high combos and avoid taking damage to get an S-style rating from each encounter and the level overall, but it is very difficult to do as it’s a game that has a lot of depth; therefore, it would be safe to say that learning how to play properly could take some time. Aside from your regular attacks, you have a meter that you can use to unleash the Hidden Techniques that can be pulled off via their dedicated fighting game-style inputs. They are overpowered; thus, they are very useful against bosses and armored enemies. What’s better is that you can execute one of the most broken moves in the game when you have at least 25% meter. However, the other one, called the Raging Demon, is a bit difficult to pull off and requires a full meter. Once the meter is full, you can enter a state called Fatal Sync, in which you can steal life from the enemies. There are also some special attacks called EX moves that are executed upon hitting light, then heavy attacks in quick succession, but when you’re in Fatal Sync, they don’t deplete your meter, and you can perform them as many times as you want! Your attacks’ speed and their damage output also rise if you’re in Fatal Sync. While it sounds pretty useful, and it is for regular enemies, it’s not when it comes to bosses, so you’ll be relying on your Hidden Techniques instead. Most of the bosses can be cheesed by using a Hidden Technique called Border Break, which rips them off the challenge they offer. I personally wouldn’t recommend relying on it that much unless you’re going for the S rank, but it’s up to you, of course. More gameplay techniques and information about the achievements, as well as the extra game mode called Crimson Citadel, can be found in my [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3538125962] guide . Be sure to check it out! The story takes place before the original Slave Zero, and we’re donning the role of a gay man called Shou with extraordinary swordsmanship who steals a Biomecha, or should I say, a Slave called X, from the Guardian Base. Note that he is also a Guardian, and he’s a hot-headed individual due to the many hardships he’s faced throughout his life. He doesn’t approve of the decisions of the leader of the Guardians, Kurikara, and mostly rebels against him. Aside from SovKhan, there are many other antagonists called the Calamities, and they are very interesting in their own regard. I really liked the clever usage of religious metaphors throughout the story, and they make perfect sense when you think about it. The original Slave Zero lacked the proper storytelling, but Slave Zero X does a great job when it comes to it. The voice acting and the soundtrack are also wonderful; they left me speechless. Despite exploring the idea of a gay protagonist, the game doesn’t fall into the “woke” category because the writing is very good and doesn’t seem to be tied to any sort of agenda. So, yeah, this is how you make a homosexual protagonist. Take notes! There is also another prequel that takes place before this one, and it’s called [url=https://poppyworks.itch.io/episode-enyo] Slave Zero X: Episode Enyo . It’s a mod for Quake; thus, it would be wise not to expect anything wonderful, but as a mod, it sure stands out! TL;DR A masterpiece that expands the lore and the universe of Slave Zero. It plays like Devil May Cry and looks like Strider 2 and Guilty Gear. If you’re into stylish action games that offer a good story and a banging soundtrack with an extraordinary voice acting, don’t miss out on Slave Zero X!
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Fun to play, but annoying by the end. It has great potential but still needs polishing in some areas.
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beats you down but eventually opens up in a great way. i had a stellar time overcoming it, and i want to play it multiple times now.
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Slave Zero X is a niche game with a lot of issues. However, if you are part of that niche target audience I have to recommend Slave Zero X because there isn’t really anything else quite like it. Slave Zero X has a unique combination of fast paced game mechanics and an underutilized art style of mixing 2D sprites and low poly 3D models. I think there is a lot of untapped potential here, and I hope that we eventually see a sequel or other games like Slave Zero X. Positives [*]I love the graphics and art style. [*]The combat is fast and unique. There are a lot of beatem up games out there, but none that control quite like Slave Zero X. Specifically, the parry system uses the parry system from Street Fighter 3 where you press directionally towards an attack at the right time to parry it. I have never seen that control scheme in a beatem up before and I want it to be explored in more games. [*]The music is good. Probably not something I will listen to outside of the game, but it fits the game well. [*]Runs on Steam Deck, but I ran into even more crashes on Steam Deck than I do on my desktop. Still, I was able to play the entire game on the Steam Deck. [*]I am really enjoying the difficulty of the game. A lot of people are calling this game hard, but I didn't think it was all that hard to complete. However, getting the "S" ranks has been really challenging so far, and I appreciate that. I am enjoying grinding out that "S" rank so far. [*]This game is Linear. There is no backtracking. There are no puzzles. There are no metroidvania progression blocks. I prefer linear games. Negatives [*]Multiple bugs including crashes. The game hard crashes nearly every time I try to open the video settings menu. There also seem to be some bugs in the input handling/queuing such as I would sometimes lose the ability to move right until I moved left first which reset something allowing me to move right again. There is also some weirdness with the mouse; when I play in "windowed" mode and click on the game window to make it my active window, it scrolls to the bottom of the current menu even making my current selection off-screen, but the game doesn't support mouse controls in the menu at all, so why did they leave some mouse event listeners in there? It seems like a bug/oversight. [*]The game forces compound inputs like having to press [X] then [Y] at a precise timing to trigger "EX moves" or [X] + [Y] + [RB] to trigger a burst. However, there is no setting to disable those compound inputs in favor for another single keybinding instead. In a single player game like this there should always be granular input settings so players can customize the controls to fit their preferences, but now I will have to go to the trouble of creating a complex custom controller configuration in Steam. [*]The game also has some timing based inputs that I found personally annoying. For example there are two dashes/dodges: if triggered during certain actions it will cancel those actions at the cost of meter and perform a very short dash, or if it is not canceling another actions then it will perform the normal long dash/dodge that doesn't cost any meter. This just isn't very fun to learn, because I always want to perform the long dash/dodge, but sometimes the cancel dash/dodge triggered instead and I ended up taking damage because my character didn't move as far as I expected. When you get more experience in the game then you can learn to play around this but it is not a fun learning experience and the game doesn't even explain it, so at first I thought the short dashes/dodges were a bug rather than an intended feature. [*]While there are a decent number of combos you can perform, the game never really encourages you to use anything other than the basic [X], [X], [X] combo. Your basic combo is fast, it keeps you on the ground which is safer than being in the air, and it still hit stuns enemies. I beat the entire game without learning any of the more complex combos, and you don't even need to use diverse combos to get "S" ranks as the ranking system appears to prioritize not taking damage over doing diverse combos. [*]The aerial gameplay sucks. The gravity is way too low. Your jump arc feels like you are on the moon with how slow it is and you can't turn around in mid air so you cannot parry and are extremely vulnerable. This is just weird considering how many aerial combos there are, but you just never want your feet to leave the ground. [*]Enemy sprites overlap. They are 2D sprites and there are often numerous enemies on screen. The problem is that some enemies have moves/states that grant them armor so they will not be hitstun, but the game doesn't render armored enemies over other enemies; it just renders the enemies based on distance/z-buffer. So you could be attacking a group of 10+ enemies, but one of those enemies is winding up an attack that cannot be hit stunned, but you can't see it coming because other enemies are being hit stunned and being rendered over top of the threat. Essentially there is visual clutter and the game should do something like render a red outline around enemies in groups that are winding up an attack. [*]The game has multiple sections where it obfuscates your vision such as a pillar being in front of the camera or a room with very little light. Preventing the player from seeing is just a bad way to add variety to gameplay in general. In my opinion restricted vision should only be in games that give you counters to it like RPGs that allow you to carry a torch so you can bring your own light. In this game there is nothing you can do about the low light sections; you just have to play through it. It doesn't feel very good. It feels cheap. [*]While the game is 2D plane, that 2D plane sometimes turns 90 degrees and the camera will whip around to maintain the side view. I really like this effect, but it just needs to be more gradual. Right now all the turns in the map are sharp turns, and that makes it really hard to judge distances or see enemies. The turns just need a wider arc so that it wouldn't distort the players view as much. [*]They included shops in the game where you can buy some upgrades and refill your health and ammo, but... why? There was no reason to include a progression system in this game. Not every game needs a progression system, and the fact that the one they did include here is so inconsequential is just leaving me scratching my head. Also when you enter the training room from the main menu, it will refill all your ordnance ammo, which will persist into missions, so you can go into every single mission with full ammo for free, so why are the shops there? The shop menus should be removed from the game, and if you still wanted to provide players the ability to heal at the current shop locations just instantly heal them. [*]There is a "Restart Stage" option in the pause menu, but it doesn't seem to work. It seems to restart from the last checkpoint more often than it actually restarts the entire stage.I have to exit to the main menu and in order to restart the stage from the beginning, which is annoying because it causes a loading screen. [*]There are leaderboards, but the UI is terrible. There is even a "find self" feature on the leaderboards, but it just flat out doesn't work. I love that there are leaderboards, but this UI needs a complete overhaul. In the current state it is nearly unusable. Other Games On Steam To Consider [*]Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors [*]Capcom Arcade Stadium: STRIDER [*]Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising (Note: Primarily a fighting game, but includes a single player beat-em up story mode.) [*]BlazBlue Entropy Effect (Note: Has 2D plane beatem up gameplay but includes randomized roguelike mechanics)
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you know a game is good when you get 10 pages of text about in-game mechanics the moment you go through the intro level
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Frequently Asked Questions
Slave Zero X is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam.
Slave Zero X is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 24.50€ on Steam.
Slave Zero X received 287 positive votes out of a total of 366 achieving a rating of 7.36.
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Slave Zero X was developed by Poppy Works and published by Ziggurat.
Slave Zero X is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Slave Zero X is not playable on MacOS.
Slave Zero X is not playable on Linux.
Slave Zero X is a single-player game.
There are 3 DLCs available for Slave Zero X. Explore additional content available for Slave Zero X on Steam.
Slave Zero X does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Slave Zero X does not support Steam Remote Play.
Slave Zero X is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Slave Zero X.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 13 September 2025 12:11 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 09 September 2025 18:05 |
| Steam price | 14 September 2025 04:48 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 04:00 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Slave Zero X, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Slave Zero X
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Slave Zero X concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Slave Zero X compatibility
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Developer
Poppy Works
Publisher
Ziggurat
Release
21 Feb 2024
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