Also scattered throughout levels are journals from the original inhabitants of the station. These text logs unravel the mystery of the facility and its connection with the anomalies that continue to rip apart the universe. While these are certainly interesting, the story’s role in the enjoyment derived from Sublevel Zero is negligible. Perhaps Sigtrap Games had designs to expand the larger narrative and its impact on gameplay beyond the initial premise, but those never come to fruition. I would have been interested to learn more about the wandering, primitive clans and how life goes on when a rip in space-time can pulverize a planet at any given time. Unfortunately, while those types of events are mentioned, they remain firmly in the background.

Sigtrap Games describes Sublevel Zero as a six degrees of freedom type game meshed with roguelike qualities. Essentially, it plays like an arcade space flight sim mixed with Doom. Every level takes place within a confined, randomized space full of bright lights, branching corridors, and rooms of enemies. While the gunplay feels highly polished and responsive, the potential to become disoriented presents a real obstacle for players. Since the premise of the game has the player floating in space, it can be sometimes hard to orient the ship and get a handle on the surroundings. Often entering new rooms, especially in the cavernous middle stages, can prove to be a miserable affair. Once enemies enter the fray, spraying blazing laser pixels in the player’s direction, it becomes confusing to parse out the action on screen and the ship's relation to it. Being unfamiliar with the terrain can mean death if the ship catches on the nearby geometry. The core appeal of both roguelikes and games that successfully draw on Doom is that when you died, you fell like it was fair. You screwed up, so you died. That sense of fairness can sometimes be compromised in Sublevel Zero and that presents a flaw.

The soundtrack composed by Will Bedford, deserves a shout out being a perfect complement to the Sublevel Zero experience. It manages to create a focused, yet chill, atmosphere that occasionally expands dynamically during large encounters to build a feeling of epic resistance. It adds an urgency that the core gameplay sometimes lacks between rooms of enemies. The game would be utterly and completely different with a lesser musical accompaniment.