Some of them are fun, some of them are practical, and some of them are very situational. There are almost 30 mutations in the game - but you’ll only get to pick from a random selection of four at any time. Either way, power isn’t everything - the more powerful weapons take longer to reload and use more ammo, and if you run out of ammo, you’re going to have a pretty pathetic end to your run.Īs you kill enemies and bosses in the wastelands, your mutant will gain radiation - or rads - that help your mutant achieve mutations. Some of them are the usual fare, pistols, machineguns, screwdrivers, laserguns - and some of them are completely over the top - things like gatling sluggers, super plasma guns and the golden nuke launcher. When you get better at the game, you will get access to their own powerful Throne Butt or even more powerful Ultra abilities for your current run.Ī mutant can carry two weapons at once, and there are approximately 125 weapons in Nuclear Throne. Each of them has a passive and an active ability - sometimes simple, such as a temporary shield or higher ammo drops, and sometimes ridiculous, such as interdimensional airstrikes and the ability to fight on as a headless chicken after you die. In Nuclear Throne, you choose one of 12 mutants to reach that Nuclear Throne. We didn’t stop pushing until we saw that dreaded “Did Not Reach” pop up because of mimics we forgot about while playing, or enemies that snuck up on us and ended our runs with a single well-placed hit. We continued adding little mean things to the game until eventually our gaming skills were pushed to the absolute limit. Nuclear Throne did that, and then we made it harder and added more content. When we set out to make this game, we wanted to make a game that would be fun to play for us as its creators - something even we couldn’t fully predict. To the two of us at Vlambeer and the four others who have been working on the game for the past two and a half years, there’s something exciting about making a game that’s intentionally mean to you in every possible way, without becoming unfair.

More than anything, the result of your run will be seven simple words: “You did not reach the Nuclear Throne.”

It’s a brutal mix of fast-paced, top-down action, random generation, permadeath, and player choice - and honestly, you probably won’t stand a chance. In Nuclear Throne, your goal is simple: reach the Nuclear Throne.

Nuclear throne weekly