Cicadia

Bugs, ruins, and a free ticket in

Cicadia sends players into the buried temples of the Cicadians, an ancient alien species that spread mutated insect spawn across the galaxy before falling silent. It's a free-to-play sci-fi FPS roguelike from the small studio Toadstool Games, built around descending through procedurally generated labyrinths of handcrafted rooms, fighting swarms of bug enemies, and piecing together what happened to the civilization that built the place through scattered Lore tablets. The premise is thin, as roguelike shooter premises often are, but it does real work setting a tone — dark, faintly horror-tinged science fiction layered over an oddly endearing bug infestation, with cover art and a general aesthetic that multiple reviewers say caught their attention before anything else did. Because the game costs nothing, reviewers tend to grade it on a curve that most premium releases don't get, and even so, the verdict among the 22 English-language reviews on file is unanimously positive.

Bread-and-butter shooting with real polish

Reviewers are consistent in describing Cicadia's core gunplay as fundamentally solid rather than showy. One detailed review calls it "a very modest FPS roguelike" that "doesn't do anything too outstanding with its fairly bread-and-butter movement shooter mechanics," but credits it with "exceptionally strong fundamentals" that make the game intuitive to grasp after only a brief trial-and-error learning curve. Other reviewers echo that sentiment in shorter form, praising gunplay and movement as simply feeling good, and pointing to the combat loop — clearing swarms of alien insects across increasingly difficult procedurally generated floors — as the main reason they kept coming back for another run. It's not a game reinventing the roguelike shooter, but reviewers largely agree it executes the genre's basics with more care than its free price tag might suggest. One reviewer puts a number on that gap directly, writing that with co-op and an endless mode added they'd "have paid 10 bucks for this easy" — a telling sign of how much goodwill the free price point has bought the developers before a single paid feature exists.

Bile, genetic upgrades, and run-to-run identity

Where Cicadia earns some of its most specific praise is its Bile-based upgrade system. Killing enemies yields Bile, which can be spent at upgrade terminals scattered through the ruins to genetically modify the player character in real time, building out a skill set tailored to whatever weapons and items happen to turn up on that particular run. One reviewer specifically highlights this as giving "each run a little bit of its own identity," framing it as more interesting than simply accumulating flat power over a run. That said, the same praise comes with an implicit limit: because the system draws from a relatively small pool of weapons and upgrade paths, several reviewers who enjoyed the loop still flagged it as an area they'd like to see expanded, wanting more variety to keep runs feeling distinct over longer play sessions.

Atmosphere carries a lot of the game's weight

Presentation is where Cicadia earns some of its most consistent praise. Reviewers repeatedly single out the soundtrack by name — one simply writes that "the silk Cicadian soundtrack SLAPS" — and describe the overall atmosphere and art direction as immersive and thoughtfully crafted, with one longer review calling out "attention to detail" and a sense that "the developers poured passion into this project." The insect-horror aesthetic is played partly for genuine dread and partly for dark comedy, and several reviewers describe finding themselves charmed by the game's cast of "horrifyingly cute" bug enemies rather than simply repulsed by them. For a small, free release, that level of stylistic cohesion is repeatedly cited as punching well above what players expected going in. That goodwill extends to replay incentive, too — one reviewer specifically mentions working through the game's achievement list as a reason to keep playing past their first run, on top of simply wanting to see more of the Cicadians' ruins.

Where the bugs are more than thematic

Cicadia's most consistent complaint is, fittingly, actual bugs. Reviewers report clipping through map geometry and falling out of the level entirely, along with at least one specific account of a boss fight's projectile effect glitching into a stretch of non-stop flashing lights that persisted until the player found a way through it — worth flagging directly for anyone sensitive to strobing effects. Movement is described by one reviewer as "a little slow and floaty," a complaint that lines up with requests from others for more overall polish. Content depth is the other recurring ask: several reviewers specifically want more weapons and enemy types to improve replayability, along with features that don't currently exist, like a co-op mode, an endless mode, and a visible health bar during boss encounters, which at least one reviewer says would help make fight progress easier to read in the moment.

Verdict

Cicadia is a small, free roguelike shooter that punches well above its price tag, built on genuinely solid gunplay fundamentals, a Bile-based upgrade system that gives each run some real identity, and an insect-horror atmosphere carried by an unusually well-regarded soundtrack. It isn't reinventing its genre, and its rough edges are real — map-clipping bugs, a floaty feel to movement, and a request list for more weapons, enemy variety, and quality-of-life features like boss health bars that the current build doesn't yet deliver. But with zero cost of entry and a unanimous run of positive reviews behind it, Cicadia is an easy recommendation for roguelike shooter fans looking for something with more personality than its budget would suggest, and one worth revisiting as Toadstool Games continues to build it out.