20 Tips To Survive Matterfall's Unforgiving Difficulty

Matterfall, the latest arcadey action game from Housemarque, is surprisingly difficult. With death waiting around every corner thanks to bullet-spewing enemies and spiky pits, there's a lot that can get your freelancer vaporized. Luckily, through my hundreds of demises, I've learned a couple of tricks that might keep you from dying...so much.

Traversal
1. Always explore. Civilians are hidden away from the straight path through each level, and saving them unlocks precious weapons and augmentations for you to use.

2. You can use your matter ray to hit certain floating installments and matterwalls to form shields from enemy fire.

3. Certain turrets spew red laser beams. You cannot phase through these without taking damage. You’ll need to destroy them to get past them.

4. If you see glowing blue shards floating about, pick them up! They build your shock charge, which can be used for a devastating attack.

5. Teleporters are not checkpoints so don’t get cocky after you use one. Play it safe until you hit an actual checkpoint.

6. At certain sections, you'll access anti-gravity wells often occupied by enemies that spew bullets in a circular pattern. Spend a few minutes watching and memorizing the pattern before you proceed through the section.

7. Later levels have difficult thread-the-needle sections. Make sure that you're pushing in the right direction when it's time to phase. It's very easy to slightly tilt upward on the joystick and send your Freelancer careening in another direction, to her doom.

8. Most enemies and environment traps can be phased through but not all of them, and not all can be destroyed. Learn what these traps are and then memorize their timing so you can avoid them.

9. There are purple sacks littered around each level. These don't do anything but give you a higher score if you find them but they're worth going after if you want to climb the leaderboards.

10. If you die a lot during a particularly difficult platforming section, don't get disheartened. Try another route, either above or below what you were doing before. There are often multiple lateral routes through a single section that each have their own dangers and amount of foes.

Combat
11. Always try to have two sub weapons and one modifier in your augmentations slot. Your dash ability will save your metallic hide many times. Use it to stun enemies and phase through fire.

12. Shield-toting enemies seem intimidating at first but jump and zap over them to hit them from behind. Same goes for the bull-rush enemy type you come across later.

13. Always keep moving. Don’t be afraid to take damage (unless you’re going for a super high score) as health packs are generous.

14. When you defeat enemies, occasionally a cluster bomb will appear. Use your matter gun (L2) to make it detonate when enemies are close, which kills a lot of them and builds up your score.

15. If you get crowded by enemies in a tight space, try and dash out of there ASAP even if it means taking damage as having enemy fire coming at you from all directions in a small space usually means game over.

16. You don’t have to fight every enemy. Sometimes it’s best to zap through a section if you find yourself overwhelmed.

17. You might be tempted to save your shock charge, which slows down time and increases your firepower for a brief period of time, for when you get in a bind. Don’t. Use it as much as possible to build up combos and scores. You get enough charges during levels that you don’t need to conserve the energy.

18. The beam of your railgun will ricochet once and can strike enemies on the rebound, killing them.

19. Experiment with your secondary weapons as you get them. They can often make the difference between survival and defeat.

20. Enemies can’t phase or fire through matter walls even though you can. Use this to your advantage. If a bunch of foes are crowding you, phase behind one and blast them through the wall to clear them out.

For more Matterfall, be sure to check out our review.