Duet Night Abyss Review [Closed Beta Test] | A Daring Shot

updated_at: March 12, 2025 05:01

published_at: February 19, 2025 21:00

Duet Night Abyss
Release Date	Gameplay & Story	Pre-Register	Review

Duet Night Abyss is currently holding its Closed Beta Test! Read on to learn about what we think of the upcoming looter shooter by PAN Studios and Hero Games!

Duet Night Abyss [Closed Beta Test] Review

A Daring Shot

Among the many, many notable upcoming mobile games of late, Duet Night Abyss stands out amongst them (no small feat) for the same reason as Snowbreak: Containment Zone once did many decades ago, or at least in internet time: it’s an anime action shooter, a rather rare commodity in a market dominated by turn-based and action-adventure titles like Honkai: Star Rail and Wuthering Waves.

However, unlike the other games that compete in the same space as Duet Night Abyss, it had distinguished itself early on with its parkour-based movement system, ability-based combat using both hack-and-slash and shooter gameplay, and looter shooter loop. It’s these things that ultimately earn it the honor of being compared to Warframe, a still widely popular game that I also have a personal inclination to.

Beyond these details, though, I had no idea about what the game was other than whatever little information became available on the internet from their last testing.

That is until now… (cue dramatic sound effects)

Thanks to the much more generous selection of players/Phoxhunters during Duet Night Abyss’ Closed Beta Test, I was able to get my grubby fingers on the game for myself. And oh, damn, was it good. But certainly not perfect. Not yet.

The Story Doesn’t Pull Any Punches

I distinctly remember the days when gacha game stories were more similar to children’s animation. For example, Soccer Spirits’ story, the first gacha game story I’ve ever read, was about how a bunch of soccer-loving kids defeated multiple factions of aliens, angels, and demons purely with their skill, passion, and friendship (mostly with the last one), leading them to save the world somehow and gain widespread recognition from every race.

It was great for its time. Nowadays, though, it feels as if the average tone of a gacha game’s story meanders between the slice of life and "We’re all gonna die" dichotomy on the regular.

Nothing wrong with that, though. If anything, it just lowers the barrier of entry—gritty stories aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, after all. But that’s exactly why I appreciate the tone of Duet Night Abyss’ story: unapologetically dark and full of tragedy.

Duet Night Abyss follows the story of a young girl who lived most of her life on an island, together with her best friend and a small community of tradesmen. Beyond the reaches of her small world, she has no knowledge of the outside. So when a mysterious military force invades, abducts her best friend, and throws her off a cliff, she is left with no choice but to take the time to adapt to the new world she wakes up in—all the while planning to take on the largest empire in the world to rescue her friend, of course.

It's a very effective kind of opening; set the protagonist up with an intimate partner, give them enough time to impress their bonds to you, and then, in one dramatic swoop, rip them away from each other whilst ensuring that you have an antagonistic entity to blame.

It gives real Tales of Berseria vibes. But that’s all still standard fare and nothing to really gush about. It’s what comes after that the real roller coaster starts.

This will become very spoiler-heavy very quickly if I talk about what follows next, either directly or implied, so I’ll avoid saying anything further. Just know that the end of the first arc still leaves a particularly bittersweet taste in my mouth. As well as the salty taste of my tears. It’s designed to deliberately and quickly end any misconceptions you may have had for the narrative and hammer home the point: Duet Night Abyss’ story isn’t here to play around. Suffice to say, Duet Night Abyss shows no qualms about using tragedies to impress upon you the realities of its world. And it’s quite good at doing so.

Small spoiler alert, so skip this paragraph if you want everything to be a surprise, but as if that turn of events wasn’t enough, you’re hit with another doozy after the first arc; the plot follows parallel storytelling. It’s at that point you realize that the game isn’t about one character’s journey; it’s about two utterly unrelated, yet closely intertwined characters that share only one thing in common; a connection to the game’s controversial central faction, one against and one in favor of, leading to a blurring of lines between good and evil.

A Shooter in the Rough; An Action Title Yet to Bloom

There are many ways to describe Duet Night Abyss’ gameplay. You can call it a looter shooter with action RPG elements, for instance. Or, you can say it’s a semi-open world adventure game with third person shooter mechanics. Probably the easiest way for gamers to get a clear image of it, of course, would be to just call it "Warframe with waifus."

It doesn’t matter what your preference is, they all fit. And that’s why Duet Night Abyss feels so nice to play; it seamlessly welcomes a wide demographic of players without feeling like it’s pandering to any specific one. But while it feels nice to play, the game is still in beta, so there are a few items that need polishing here and there.

The Duet Night Abyss Closed Beta Test experience can essentially be judged by its three constituent genres: looter shooter, action, and RPG.

Its looter shooter design dictates the gameplay loop. In this case, you mostly play to endlessly collect weapons (by crafting or reward drops), Demon Wedges to modify weapons and characters, materials to craft, etc.

The action game side of it comes from its combat fast-paced mix of melee and ranged combat, stylistic acrobatic movement system that seamlessly segues between combat and exploration, and character-based skills that offer a variety of effects.

And for the RPG side of things, customization. Players are allowed to, not just customize their character’s skills and loadout, but also their clothes, accessories, and even how they are remembered by other characters.

Entry-Friendly Core Gameplay Loop

Unlike many other gacha games where crafting is just a coping mechanism for those who can’t afford better items, crafting in Duet Night Abyss actually yields some very fine rewards, ranging from unique strengthening fodder to the highest rarity weapons.

However, obtaining the materials for crafting often involves repeating long stages where you fight either waves upon waves of mobs or epic bosses in the Nocturnal Echoes stages. At least, the bosses are epic the first few times playing it. The problem is just that… the bosses aren’t actually all that challenging. Sure, you may struggle during your first or second time fighting them. But their attacks are so heavily telegraphed and easy to dodge that by the third or fourth fight, you probably won’t need to do much more than restock potions at home afterward.

It’s great for accessibility, sure. But in the long-term? Let’s just say I hope the game releases more challenging endgame content to farm on once co-op becomes available.

Float Like a Bee, Sting Like a Wasp… Was That How It Went?

Anyone who has ever laid their hands on a mobile action game will find Duet Night Abyss easy to pick up. It shares a lot of features with many of the popular titles, although some might be presented differently (like climbing walls requiring you to mash the spacebar).

The notable difference that separates Duet Night Abyss from other action-oriented mobile games however (at least in terms of the overall gameplay experience), would be the firearm that’s entirely controlled by your right mouse button. This seemingly minor addition changes so much of the action game formula. It might be due to how guns are balanced in this game—they’re extremely strong, but their ammunition comes from enemy drops. It could also be because their interactions with certain melee weapons further add to their functionality, such as automatically reloading a magazine on a critical hit.

Either way, you’re sure to rely on your guns far more often than you might have expected to. No matter how you feel a certain way about wielding giant swords and scythes, guns are just too good to ignore. And it certainly doesn’t help that every single boss I’ve encountered has been weak to gunfire, directly or otherwise.

To help you with your gunslinging escapades though, Duet Night Abyss’ movement system is designed around providing you with the best and most stylish ways to pull that trigger. You can slide on the floor, jump up walls, dash through the air, and even use boosted jumps called Helix Leaps to quickly navigate the game’s high verticality maps. With all of these movement options, as you can imagine, the gunplay in Duet Night Abyss is amazing.

In exchange, however, it does sacrifice the melee combat experience quite a bit. Like, did you notice how I didn’t mention sprinting in that list? Because you can’t. So, if you see something you want to stab, you have no choice but to lightly jog your way over to them or awkwardly spam Helix Leaps. Many of the game’s melee attacks don’t even move your character towards the enemy in any effective amounts. You can do plunge attacks, sure, but those are also pretty clunky due to the maximum range not coinciding with your reticle. This should be a simple enough fix though: they just need to simply add a landing spot indicator.

But perhaps the thing that needs the most polish is the collision boxes for characters and surfaces. It feels like there’s too many things you can get snagged on in this build, like random corners or ledges that look like you should be able to vault over easily. So when climbing up walls, you’re required to dash forward just to overcome the final foot of empty air. This can really hurt the momentum of combat, especially for close quarter engagements that heavily depend on positioning.

Duets and Dragons: Beta Edition

When it comes to customization, Duet Night Abyss truly rolls out the red carpet. Picture this: you can deck out your character with an array of accessories—hats, clips, masks, you name it. It’s like a fashion show meets a battlefield, and trust me, you’ll want to look good while you’re blasting through hordes of enemies. Who says you can’t be stylish while saving the world?

But the real kicker? The game has implemented a character attribute growth system that feels straight out of a Dungeons & Dragons handbook. Players can mold the personality of their protagonist, shaping not just how they look, but how they interact with the world around them. There’s even a dice throw system to check for advantages.

Now, let’s talk about the party system. Unlike other titles like Snowbreak: Containment Zone and Wuthering Waves, where you can swap characters on the fly, Duet Night Abyss takes a different approach. Here, you summon up to two companions to fight alongside you, allowing you to create a formidable presence on the battlefield. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s actually a double-edged sword.

While you can unleash your mini army of allies to wreak havoc on your foes, coordinating with AI companions can feel like herding cats. Seriously, good luck trying to get them to follow your lead in the heat of battle. You might find yourself wishing for a bit more control over your squad, especially when the chaos ramps up. It introduces a level of unpredictability that can be thrilling or frustrating, depending on the type of player you are.

Finally, F2P-Friendly Gacha

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Duet Night Abyss’ gacha system. If the beta reflects the final product in any way, then obtaining characters and premium weapons in this game will require pulling on banners. These are divided into three types:

Sojourns Entwined, the game’s Standard banner, is perpetually available to all players and contains a mixed pool of characters and weapons with a base drop rate of 0.6% for SSRs. The guarantee, or hard pity, triggers at 90 pulls, placing the overall SSR drop rate at around 1.6%. However, since both characters and weapons share the same pool, the actual rates are closer to 0.3% base and 0.8% overall for each. Fortunately, Sojourns Entwined uses a different ticket from the event banners, so you’ll be able to pull from it regularly.

Meanwhile, the Event banners are divided into two types: one for the rate-up character (in this case, Psyche) and another for her weapon, Elpides Abound. Both operate slightly differently than in other gacha games—and don’t worry, it’s all good news from here on out.

Starting with the Event Weapon banner, similar to Wuthering Waves, pulling an SSR guarantees you the rate-up weapon. No more mini panic attacks whenever you see the golden glow of your pity going bye-bye. The hard pity is also set slightly lower than the other banners at 80 to trigger it. It’s an incredibly welcome feature, especially for F2P players who just want to collect characters.

Then, we have the Event Character banner. At first glance, it seems identical to rate-up banners in other gacha games. That is, until you realize it’s further subdivided into two types: the Destined Chrono and the Event Character Chrono. These serve markedly different purposes depending on how you want to spend your currency.

The Event Chrono works just like any other banner: you pull, wish the RNGods bless your rolls, see the golden glow of destiny, and then pray hard that you win the 50-50. Basic, albeit frustrating, stuff.

The Destined Chrono, however, is completely different. It’s an Event Character banner that’s only active temporarily but guarantees you the rate-up character when you pull an SSR from it. Yes, that’s right—it guarantees you the character.

With both the Destined and Event Chrono in play, this essentially means you can get any rate-up character you want as long as you have enough pulls to trigger the former’s hard pity at 90. You’ll only have to deal with the 50-50 shenanigans if, for some reason, you want to pull dupes and further strengthen your characters.

That’s a very, very, very F2P-friendly gacha mechanic (contradictory, I know), and I tip my hat to the developers if they stick with it until the final release.

A Promising Path Ahead

All things considered, I genuinely feel like Duet Night Abyss is heading in the right direction. The story, in particular, has left a lasting impression on me. I can’t remember the last time a chapter one caused me this much emotional grief—it's a testament to the narrative's depth and the stakes it sets up right from the get-go.

However, there’s a glaring need for polish, especially in the melee combat experience. Given the seamless fluidity of games like Warframe and the insane efficiency of its competitors, Duet Night Abyss feels stuck in 2016 in that regard. The potential is there, but it needs to catch up to the standards set by the giants in the genre. With a bit more refinement, this game could truly shine. Or maybe the presence of cute girls can help tide it over.

But they shouldn’t rest on their laurels. Here’s hoping the developers take these insights to heart as they continue to shape this promising title!