PC Critic Reviews

Takedown: Red Sabre was Letdown: Bad Sabre. The rebirth of tactical shooters is hereby cancelled. [Oct 2013]

Serellan seems dedicated to shaping Takedown into its original pitch, but it needs far more time in the planning phase. [Feb 2014, p.90]

Rarely exciting, mostly disappointing. An unfinished tactical shooter let down by technical issues and terrible AI.

There’s nothing natural about AI that faces the wrong way in combat, or a shooter who doesn’t know what gear he brought into combat, or squad members who can’t communicate. When shooting for authenticity, a half step is not enough.

Takedown: Red Sabre is a wasted opportunity, a game with many problems of gameplay, a terrific AI and a poor technical realization.

Takedown: Red Sabre sums up the fears of every Kickstarter backer: that in the end they’ll have paid up front for something that doesn’t turn out very good. With clumsy presentation and wildly uneven difficulty, the game fails to be a competent FPS, much less a tactical one. The best advice I can give is to avoid it, which is little solace for those who backed it in the first place.

Financial issues killed an old-school promising shooter in its own cradle.

A game that its own bots would probably refuse to play it.

Please, don't get fooled by Serellan's proclamations and don't fall in the trap. Takedown: Red Sabre is a terrible first person shooter, ugly to watch and painful to play. You won't get any fun from it, even if you insist on fighting against its flaws. Stay away from it.

Takedown: Red Sabre was supposed to be an eloquent love letter to the tactical shooter genre, but the final product ends up reading more like hate mail. There isn’t a single part of the game that rises above mediocrity, and much of it dips below that mark. Worst of all, the very fans who have been craving a new game like Takedown are the ones who will be disappointed by it the most.