Black Beacon’s has just launched on mobile, and if you have questions about the Mythic Sci-Fi Action RPG, we’re here to answer them.

We got our paws on the Black Beacon pre-release version, and we’re eager to let you know some of our key takeaways from our time with the new title. These are all things we feel that you’d want to know as the game limbers up to release, and you’re deciding whether it’s worth the drive space. 

You Don’t Need A Crazy Powerful Phone For It

Black Beacon is very pretty-looking, which we like. Though for some people we know ‘looks nice’ more or less means ‘looks like it won’t work on my regular phone’. Now, we are a gaming site. We have access to some pretty nice devices, but we know not everyone is rocking a gaming phone, so we tried this out on a 5-year-old mid-range Android phone too. 

Before you start, the game presents you with graphic options. There’s a balanced setting that’s the default, a faster setting that slims down the graphical intensity, and an HD setting for going all-out. 

It seemed to run fine on a fairly unremarkable device on Normal mode, without any noticeable frame drops.

Gameplay Is A Bit Like A Linear Dungeon Crawler

Moment-to-moment gameplay is broken down into short ‘episodes’ where you traverse sections of the Library Of Babel. On the way, you’ll find enemies, puzzles, and treasure chests. (And plot, of course.)

The maps are broken into sections with doors in between. It keeps the areas relatively small and manageable for your device, and lets you explore a little without presenting massive empty spaces. 

The game allows you to switch between a top-down view or a free camera, with the option to change it up on the fly.

Combat Is Trickier Than We Expected

Combat in Black Beacon is pretty fast-moving, and at a glance, you might assume it was a lot of mindless button-mashing. (Which isn’t always a bad thing.) We soon discovered that you can’t just vibe your way through every combat session and need to lock in and pay attention.

There’s a heavy attack parry system that’s not FromSoft levels of timing, but it does require you to watch larger enemies’ movements and be ready to strike, or face punishment for your inattentiveness.

The game also lets you swap characters mid-combat, or mid-combo, which does at least give them some respite after getting thrown around by the monsters. 

It’s not unfairly hard, but fights feel like they have actual stakes at times.

There’s Character And Weapon Gacha

Always the question when you get into the rolling! There’s a fairly manageable cast of characters in Black Beacon, at least at the point we tried it. Then the weapon gacha provides additional options. Weapons are matched to particular characters, but you can also upgrade your favorites to increase their viability as you progress. 

In our experience, it didn’t seem like a way to just make you acquire two kinds of currency for pulls, though. We were getting both characters and weapons when we tried it. Of course, that does mean a bigger pool to pull from.

It’s Weird, And We Kind Of Dig That

We’ve been known to enjoy the odd gacha game here and there, but sometimes the settings can get a little samey. Save the kingdom from the bad guy, etc, etc.

So we do appreciate that Black Beacon has gone pretty weird with its setting of a bizarre, physics-defying, time-travelling library full of monsters, telepathic sparrows, and killer basketballs from the future. There’s plenty of supplementary lore to read if you want more explanations about what’s going on, but it did feel quite novel to have no idea where the story was going next. 

If this all sounds interesting, then you might want to check out the Black Beacon website, and download the game via the App Store or Google Play.