Sektori is a modern homage to the golden age of arcade twin-stick shooters, yet it also transcends that legacy by weaving in a sophisticated blend of contemporary design ideas. Developed by Kimmo Lahtinen, a former member of the acclaimed Returnal studio Housemarque, the game places players in control of a small, maneuverable spacecraft tasked with surviving relentless waves of enemy formations. Every moment in Sektori demands precision, anticipation, and composure as you dart between incoming threats and gather precious upgrades that gradually enhance your ship’s capabilities. It’s a game that revives the essence of fast-paced, unforgiving arcade classics, while building on that foundation to create something vibrantly new — a true fusion of retro challenge and modern artistic abstraction.
Each session in Sektori feels fleeting yet electrifying. Runs can last a few intense minutes before failure inevitably arrives, evoking the brevity and tension of vintage arcade experiences where survival was measured in seconds rather than hours. However, beneath this traditional surface, Lahtinen infuses the game with ideas characteristic of contemporary roguelikes, balancing chaos and order through procedural elements, rhythmic visual presentation, and pulsating electronic music. The combination generates a hypnotic, almost meditative flow, transforming the symphony of shooting and evasion into a mesmerizing spectacle of sound and color.
The strongest aspect of Sektori lies in its uncanny ability to induce what psychologists call the “flow state” — that feeling of total immersion when thought and action merge seamlessly. The game’s own campaign description encapsulates this philosophy with poetic abstraction: “Sektori is a place, a form of being, a method of transformation. Sektori is seeking, processing, shaping. Sektori is a specter of your zero state.” These words might initially appear opaque or pretentious, yet they capture a fundamental truth about the experience it offers: to play Sektori is to enter a shifting mental and spatial environment where learning, adaptation, and instinct intertwine. Understanding how each mechanic integrates into this greater design takes time, but once the realization dawns, it feels revelatory.
When beginning a campaign run, your delicate ship materializes within a confined combat arena. At first, your offensive options are limited to two distinct attacks: a basic gun that unleashes endless streams of laser fire wherever the right stick is aimed, and a powerful “strike” maneuver — a short, propulsive burst that doubles as both an attack and an emergency escape tool, though its use is constrained by a cooldown period. Enemies emerge constantly as rudimentary, geometrically abstract figures, rendered first as faint red projections that offer a split second of warning before solidifying into solid, deadly threats. The ship starts with three protective shields, each functioning as a single life; lose them all, and the run ends abruptly. Every destroyed foe disintegrates into glittering fragments called “glimmer.” Collect enough of these glowing shards and you gain access to incremental but crucial upgrades, the lifeblood of your continued survival.
Sektori’s core innovation — its true mechanical heart — lies within its upgrade system, an elegant and devilishly strategic design that rewards both patience and risk-taking. Displayed along the left side of the screen is an evolving list of potential upgrades divided across categories like speed, strike power, shield strength, missiles, and blaster efficiency. Each time you pick up a special selector token, it shifts your upgrade potential up the list by one level, climbing toward the more powerful enhancements. However, the moment you commit to any chosen upgrade, the selector resets, pushing you back to the initial slot in the sequence. This cyclical progression means that players must constantly balance immediate survival incentives — grabbing an attainable speed or shield upgrade — against the lure of delayed but far more effective improvements higher up the hierarchy.
Adding further complexity, you can only expand your shield reserves a limited number of times — five, to be precise — which introduces agonizing risk-versus-reward decisions. Do you reinforce your defenses now, ensuring a momentary reprieve, or gamble everything on staying alive just long enough to earn that coveted missile swarm or blaster enhancement that could turn the tide offensively? Every instant of hesitation occurs amid chaos, as enemies close in from all directions, forcing you to decide under pressure and adding an almost tactical tension to what might otherwise seem like pure reflex gameplay.
Occasionally, fate offers a reprieve in the form of “evolver tokens.” These provide more dramatic and permanent enhancements, presented in cardlike fashion, granting abilities such as autonomous drones that hover protectively around your ship or specialized rear-facing cannons that expand your field of attack. Occasionally, you’ll encounter tokens etched with rotating letters; collecting enough to spell a complete word, the length of which scales with difficulty, thrusts your ship into a temporary yet ecstatic state of chromatic fury — an invincible, rainbow-hued blaze akin to the famous star power-up effect from Mario Kart, but filtered through an abstract neon dreamscape.
Meanwhile, the environment itself refuses to remain static. The arena continuously morphs in size and shape — expanding, contracting, and sometimes partitioning itself into segregated zones. Portions of the grid flash ominously red before erasing themselves, and any player unfortunate enough to be trapped within a vanishing sector faces instant annihilation. This constant modulation not only intensifies the visual dynamism but forces continuous spatial reevaluation. Successfully surviving long enough leads to encounters with formidable bosses: vast, segmented constructs reminiscent of classic serpentine foes such as Moldorm. Defeating one ushers you into the next, increasingly punishing stage. Conquer five levels, and you complete what can only be described as a perfect run.
The sheer density of simultaneous events can initially feel overwhelming. More often than not, my own attempts conclude prematurely as early enemies overpower an underdeveloped vessel. Even when luck and skill align to produce a promising build, victory feels suspended by the thinnest of wires. Yet therein lies Sektori’s brilliance — the tension between fragility and mastery. When a run finally clicks, every movement, every dodge, every flash of collected glimmer contributes to an intoxicating rhythm of sustained survival. It’s at that moment that Sektori transcends mere challenge and becomes something closer to performance art, a synchronized dance of color, sound, and swift mechanical precision.
To date, I have only managed to fully defeat the game once. But in that single, luminous instance, the core of Sektori’s philosophy crystallized before me — an understanding that this experience is not solely about dexterity or endurance, but about achieving a kind of harmony within chaos. Sektori, now available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, invites players not merely to survive but to transform, offering one of the most entrancing interpretations of what a twin-stick shooter can become in the modern era.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/games/840324/sektori-review-pc-ps5-xbox-series-x-s
