Mutant Storm: Reloaded gives you and a friend one small ship apiece and a room full of hostile creatures to clear. PomPom Games’ top-down twin-stick shooter supports two players together on one PC, with local shared-screen play. There is no built-in online co-op or matchmaking; Remote Play Together can stream the host’s local session to a friend. Across 89 fixed-screen rooms, you dodge enemies, fire in any direction, collect brief weapon boosts, and try to keep a score multiplier alive.
A room at a time
The game’s basic loop stays readable: enter a bounded arena, survive the incoming creatures, and clear the room before moving on. You move independently from the direction you fire, which is the defining twin-stick idea. A controller gives you separate movement and aiming sticks; keyboard controls are available on PC too. Enemies arrive from different positions and behave differently. Some drift into your path, some pursue you, and others fire at your ship. Larger creatures and regenerating turrets appear deeper into the sequence, making the same room-clearing job more crowded and more demanding.
The arenas keep the action visible from above. Their shapes and obstacles change how much space you have to move through, while bright geometric walls frame the combat. A run can turn quickly from a few scattered targets into a dense screen of projectiles, enemies, and effects. You and your friend share that space, so both ships are dealing with the same wave at once rather than splitting into separate lanes or taking different roles.
Mutant Storm is built around direct movement and shooting. There is no cover system, character class, equipment build, or story campaign to manage between rooms. You focus on staying alive, clearing threats, and deciding when to use the limited area-clearing bombs available in the arcade run. Enemy variety gives the rooms different pressures: smaller mutants can fill gaps, while enemies that shoot or pursue you make movement more urgent. Some threats need more than a quick hit, so the space around them matters as much as your aim.
Weapons, multipliers, and rising pressure
In Adventure mode, temporary power-ups can change your shots for a short stretch. The available examples include a spread shot, homing fire, a stronger laser, and a shield that can absorb a hit. These boosts keep the core weapon familiar while briefly changing what your ship can do. They do not build into a persistent loadout: the action is about what appears during the current run, not choosing upgrades back at a hub.
The score system rewards surviving several rooms without losing a life. Your multiplier rises as you keep going, increasing the value of later points. A death knocks that multiplier back and reduces the pressure for a while, while doing well moves the game toward a harder belt setting. That gives Adventure a fluctuating pace: a clean stretch pushes the challenge upward, and a mistake can offer a short breather while costing score momentum. The game tracks performance through its belt progression, and higher difficulties can be unlocked for later runs.
This rising challenge is part of the game’s replay loop. It does not add a new plot chapter or a collection of character upgrades; instead, it asks you to take the same basic controls into tougher rooms and keep the run going longer. Steam achievements and online leaderboards add goals around clearing the sequence and building scores. For your group, that means a co-op session can stay focused on one shared arcade challenge, with a visible measure of whether this attempt lasts longer or scores better than the previous one.
Adventure or Tally
Adventure strings the rooms into a longer progression through all 89. New enemies and denser waves arrive as the sequence continues, while your score and survival streak carry across the run. An early mistake can shape the rest of the attempt by dropping your multiplier and easing the pressure for a while. The challenge is about clearing each arena and keeping the run alive through the later rooms.
Tally shifts attention to individual rooms and their scores. Rather than treating the full set as one continuous run, you can select a room and try to improve its result. The game records a best score for each room, building a broader tally from those separate performances. This makes it possible to revisit a particular stage without replaying the entire sequence.
Both modes use the same central actions, so the variety comes from room layouts, enemy combinations, difficulty, and whether you are protecting one long run or chasing a room score.
A fit for a nearby friend
Local play supports up to two people in one session; there is no separate online lobby, server browser, or built-in network co-op. Remote Play Together can stream the host’s local game to a friend, but it remains a shared local session rather than a separate online mode.
On PC, both players can use keyboard controls, and mouse input is another option. Controllers are supported too.
Mutant Storm works best as a compact arcade outing for two friends who like fixed-screen shooters and repeated score challenges. It has a concrete endpoint in its 89-room Adventure sequence, plus Tally mode for revisiting individual stages. Its psychedelic color cycling and geometric enemies give the arenas a distinctive neon look, while the ambient electronic soundtrack keeps the focus on movement and impact effects. The same visual effects can make the playfield busy, and the repeated clear-the-room structure remains the whole point. If your group wants online matchmaking, a long campaign with story scenes, or roles that change from player to player, the game’s small local arcade format may be too narrow. If two ships weaving through one shared wave sounds like enough, its room-by-room format makes it easy to return for another run.