Action · August 30, 2017

X-Morph: Defense (2017)

trophy40 achievementsextension4 DLClocal_offer-80% current discountgroup100k–1M ownersrecommend3.1k recommendations
Unique fusion of a top-down shooter and tower defense strategy. You are the X-Morph - an alien species that invades Earth to harvest its resources and terraform the surface. Strategize in the build mode by carefully selecting various types of alien towers or throw yourself right into the heat of the battle. Build mazes for incoming enemies in an environment that provides exceptional planning freedom. Tear down buildings and collapse bridges to support your defense or to simply indulge in a spectacle of unprecedented destruction. Possess a range of unique alien weapons and use defense strategies like you've never seen before in this genre. Your goal is to defend the X-Morph harvesters from waves of incoming human forces. Each enemy wave is preceded by a setup phase in which the player can check what types of enemies are going to be attacking him and to observe their paths. There is no time limit for this phase, so the player can carefully plan his defenses or choose to start fighting immediately and place towers when needed during the battle. One of the game's key features is the ability to build towers virtually anywhere on the map and to shape enemy paths by connecting towers with laser fences. The player can choose between building long mazes out of basic towers or placing more advanced towers which are more effective at different types of incoming enemies. Advanced tower types specialize in dealing with specific enemy types e.g. flame towers are great for destroying fast moving ground units, artillery towers are best at countering large groups of slow enemies, anti-air laser is ideal for shooting down heavy bombers. As the X-Morph fighter you can engage enemy units directly with a diverse arsenal of weapons. You can morph into four distinct forms which specialize in dealing with different kinds of threats. Each form has a basic attack and a special charged attack mode. The Plasma Fighter is the most universal form - good at destroying both air and ground units. The Dark Matter Bomber is great at decimating groups of ground units. It can also slow down time and release a dark matter bomb that can cut down buildings. The Shredder fighter is perfect for annihilating large numbers of human air units and clearing the sky. Finally, the Laser Destroyer is best for smelting large single units. It can also charge up a gravitational anomaly that sucks in smaller enemy units. A large variety of weapons and enemies along with a dynamic, fully destructible environment provides a rich arcade shooter experience. The game's environments are constructed with a lot of attention to detail and they are almost completely destructible. From small picket fences to huge skyscrapers. Any bridge or building in the game can be collapsed and it's destruction is dynamically simulated using realistic physics. The destruction is not only a visual effect as it can significantly influence the layout of the battlefield. The combination of dynamic environments, laser fences and real-time calculated enemy paths creates unique gameplay scenarios. Humans are desperate to defend their homeworld. They have created huge, building size, mechanical war machines to fight against each other, but now they will use them to destroy the X-Morph. Each boss fight is unique and heavily influences the gameplay environment. Entire cities will be destroyed. X-Morph: Defence includes a split screen co-op mode. All missions have different gameplay scenarios designed specifically for co-op play. Enemies attack in larger numbers and from new directions making good cooperation essential to winning. In this mode the game can be played in many different ways, one player can focus on optimizing tower placement while the other shoots at enemies or they can both focus their firepower on the strongest attackers.

Action releases from 2017

180 Action titles launched in 2017 — top 6 by review volume.

Community Tag Signals

Tag weights reflect how many Steam users voted each descriptor — larger pills = stronger consensus.

  • Tower Defense · 161
  • Strategy · 129
  • Action · 116
  • Indie · 111
  • Co-op · 98
  • Local Co-Op · 98
  • Sci-fi · 98
  • Twin Stick Shooter · 96
  • Aliens · 95
  • Shooter · 94
  • Top-Down Shooter · 94
  • Destruction · 92
  • Singleplayer · 91
  • Futuristic · 89
  • Top-Down · 85

Peer Action titles

Comparable titles in the same genre and review-volume band — ranked by Steam positive percentage.

Position in Action

MetricThis titleGenre position
Review volume3.8k Steam reviewsTop 69% in Action
Positive rating92% positiveGenre average: 83% — this title sits in top 28%
Metacritic75/100Genre average 77 — top 65% of Action titles
Engagement hours6 h averageTop 67% for session depth among Action

Localization Coverage

Interface / Subtitles (12)

  • English volume_up
  • French
  • Italian
  • German
  • Spanish - Spain
  • Polish
  • Russian
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Traditional Chinese
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese - Brazil

Full audio (2)

  • English
  • Hungarian

Features & Capabilities

Multiplayer

  • Multi-player
  • Co-op
  • Shared/Split Screen Co-op
  • Shared/Split Screen

Community

  • Steam Achievements
  • Steam Trading Cards
  • Steam Workshop
  • Steam Cloud
  • Steam Leaderboards

Input & Comfort

  • Full controller support

Other

  • Single-player
  • Includes level editor

Reception Metrics

Steam community

92%Very Positive · 3.8k reviews

3.5k positive · 306 negative

Metacritic

75/100 critic aggregate

Metacritic user score

8.1/10

Curator recommendations

3.1k

Press Quotes

“X-Morph Defense is a fantastic meeting of 2 popular genres, and Exor Studios have made it work, and it works well” 9/10 – Adult Gaming Underground 84% – PC Guru “X-Morph: Defense is a marvel of physics, visuals, and that incredibly fulfilling arcade feeling.” 8.5/10 – TechRaptor

Release & Availability

Release dateAug 30, 2017
DeveloperEXOR Studios
Base price$3.99 -80%
DLC / Add-ons4 released
PlatformsWindows
Estimated owners100k–1M
External linksOfficial site · Support · [email protected]

Engagement Profile

All-time avg

6h

short (5–15 hours)

Median

2h

Typical completion time

Achievements

40

Steam unlocks available

More from EXOR Studios

EXOR Studios has 4 titles indexed — all listed below.

Editions & Packages

  • Buy X-Morph: Defense