The Atmosphere of "Ruiner"

10/7/25

The year is 2091, and the Asian-influenced, cyberpunk metropolis of Rengkok remains the foundational grounds for HEAVEN, a towering corporation stretching beyond the clouds. Overlooking the veins of the Southern Asian cityscape, the eyes of HEAVEN stare down at the various styles of livelihoods, survivalistically flowing through this industrialized hellscape. Traverse increasingly deeper below the levels of the sunlight that kiss the corporation, and soon you will reach the sky-absent gates of Hell and the misfits who roam throughout. Welcome to the territory of Rengkok, where crime and poverty share an activity level that is rampant.

Awakening in such squalor from a failed heist against HEAVEN, is a nameless, masked sociopath whose original orders by a gang leader ended in trickery. Barely surviving the encounter, the sociopath is saved through the actions of HER, a mysterious hacker heard of yet and seen only by glitched visions. While configured back to health, the masked sociopath, given only the nickname of ‘PUPPY’ from his newly found friend, learns from the hacker that his brother has been kidnapped and held under the technological, iron fist of HEAVEN. Commanded through the directions and orders of his hacktivist, overhead partner, the sociopath vows to find his brother. What occurs after is a brutalizing, fast-paced whirlwind of carnage within the dangerous, industrialized undercarriages of one Rengkok.

Ruiner is an underrated twin-stick shooter and brawler. Despite offering what is really a simple story (not needed to pay attention to in order to have fun), its true narrative, in my opinion, is with the characters that are befriended, and those that are killed. What accompanies the faces looked at by the titular sociopath are to the environments in which such actions are done, as well as the tune of what is playing. While coming face to face with the various, bloodlusting psychopaths, PUPPY progressively unlocks a deeper, fleshed-out affinity for combat, turning violence into a ballet.

Dialing that lust to a cranked-out speed of “break-neck”, Puppy can become a technological whirlwind of Death-in-the-flesh. Accompanied with an equally violent soundtrack that, also at times, offers melancholically and depressingly peaceful odes of tunes, Ruiner morphs into a pseudo-music video that plays to

the futuristic tune of a one-man manufactured gust of mayhem. This ‘potentially short’-hours long game serves as the cybernetic second cousin to, what I believe to be an inspiration of Hotline Miami. Knowing both games had been published by Devolver Digital, interestingly demonstrated the publisher’s love for the particular genre of twin-stick shooter.

SOUNDTRACK:

The music of Ruiner includes genres like Witchhouse and Industrial. One particular song is Memory, by Sidewalks and Skeletons. Such a tune invokes a forlorn and saddeningly defeated sound of someone falling deeper into a void as they nihilistically witness visions of those they love, as such can be seen happily moving through life without the falling figure’s presence. Another tune of Ruiner is Duel 35, made by Zamilska. The nature of such a song is one that is fast-paced

and has a technological motivation at its heart. The tune feels reminiscent of a vengeful, tribal clique of robots initiating an ancient summoning within the metal sands of an island infused with industrialism and Hawaiian culture.

The last musical piece is Island Door (Paranesian Circle) by Susumu Hirasawa. Now, this creation is unlike any of the other respective examples listed. The flutteringly melancholy experience of Island Door serves to the ears as a Heavenly-like audio experience that gently whisks the imagination into an instrument-obsessed afterlife built around a lusciously vegetative Japanese garden.

All three of these musical choices do not contribute a unique sound for the sake of uniqueness while battling, but for their emotional weight. The emotional heaviness of this trio of songs equates to the similarly weighted experiences that encompass a world gutted of its own individualism.

Whoever was in charge of overseeing the soundtrack artfully contributed toward a musical series of memorable experiences that are as iconic to it as another soundtrack was to Hotline Miami. Both (practically musical-based) games being discussed without the mention of their musical prowess is the equivalent of reviewing a concert only based on its theatrics and not the actual songs or singing qualities.

ENVIRONMENT:

The locations of Ruiner do remain, relatively, the same looking. The footsteps of Puppy continuously run onto massive, industrial walkways of metal flooring, akin to being the size of an ant that finds itself crawling onto a computer’s motherboard. While eyeing around, Puppy also peers at the endless tubes hooked onto walls and laid throughout the flooring, all the while, an occasional

service droid can be seen mindlessly

perfecting away the towering structures. Colorful hazes like a deathly red, fiery hot yellow, or a melancholically blue can find themselves within these industrial pathways of musically-paced killing, either throughout the halls… or forebodingly appearing from below. A particular place of visiting is Rengkok South, a central hub in which Puppy visits occasionally, bestowing upon him a hint of peace in which houses an interesting cast of personalities.

CHARACTERS:

A proper cyberpunk experience cannot house a damaged society without harbouring a selection of morally gray and jaded, yet ambitious figureheads barely surviving the broken social foundation. Ruiner is thankfully no exception to this rule, with a cast ranging from a masochistic gimp-woman serving as the face to a nightclub styled church called the Sisters of Disorder, to Iching Oracle, a fortune-telling elderly woman with a mostly robotic covered head, whose truthful premonitions come at the cost of collecting outdated coins. From sadistic, cyborg gang bosses who retain more metal than skin, to a seductive, club owner secretly operating a smuggling network, Ruiner is nothing short of well-versed in sporting the unique types that feel adequate when delving into the cyberpunk genre - a misfitted world of sharply tongued sycophants and stylishly geared opportunists

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

I have been wanting to express my perspective on this game for quite a long time, and I am truly glad to finally see the light. What is a grimy and brutal experience of pure fun, comes head to head with an artfully existential presentation that respects the cyberpunk genre. Ruiner is certainly a game well worth sinking your teeth into, especially if you are a fan of the aforementioned genre in which it lives. The company of Reikon Games has masterfully crafted the tone and presentation, as well as the soundtrack and combat style, for those looking to sink their teeth into another tale of a dreadful society lost within the wires of futurism.

-Julian Enghauser

(Guest Writer for WXOU)