Biblical Samson was known for his exceptional strength, which came from his long hair. Once his hair was cut, he became weak. In the game by Liquid Swords nothing needs to be cut – this version of Samson is already weak from the outset.

The main protagonist returns to the shabby town of Tyndalston. The guy has fallen into serious debt and must repay part of it every day. The story does feel rather average, and the characters are a bit bland, but the city itself has a distinctive atmosphere; danger lurks around every corner. The playable world is one of the game’s biggest strengths… and, as it turns out, one of the few.

The city of Tyndalston has a unique atmosphere.

In terms of gameplay, Samson is compared to Sleeping Dogs, Mad Max, or Just Cause. To repay your debts, you complete various missions. The tasks vary, but they mostly involve beating people up. Occasionally, you chase someone in a car, escape from the police, or participate in time trials.

Each mission offers a different payout and takes up part of the day. You need to plan carefully to earn a set amount within that time. Interestingly, the day cannot be reset – if you fail to collect the required sum, for example by botching a mission, the debt doesn’t decrease, but you simply go to sleep. However, tomorrow some grim men may knock on your door to remind you about your payments. This intriguing system adds a sense of tension to the situation.

Samson is a brawler – you fight with your fists, using a light attack, heavy attack, and dodge. At some point, your adrenaline bar fills up, giving the character extra strength. Occasionally, you can use a crowbar, a metal pipe, or a bottle, and throw them.

A bunch of friendly faces everywhere you look.

In addition to money, you earn experience points that can be spent on new skills. You can develop the protagonist in four main areas: instinct, tactics, aggression, and cunning. This involves both combat and driving skills. However, the progression system feels quite underdeveloped. In my opinion, some features that would be more than useful are simply missing. Overall, I didn’t enjoy the combat. While the bloodied faces of thugs look striking, the mechanics appear highly unpolished. Enemy animations repeat constantly, and foes often glitch, with their bodies moving unnaturally.

As for driving, it’s not terrible. The feeling differs depending on the type of vehicle you drive. But chases and races are also far from perfection. Most of them work best using Samson’s default car, because it’s the fastest and easiest to control. However, it breaks down very quickly – and then only a mechanic can help, but he’s often located in a far corner of the city.

Skills and abilities.

For some reason, you can’t get into just any car you find on the street if someone is inside. No, you can’t throw the driver out like in many similar open world games, you have to be a good person and find an empty car and break into it. But in some areas of the city, there are no empty cars. In such situations, Samson can pursue cars on foot, but as it’s largely pointless, it’s simpler to admit defeat and reload.

All of this might still be tolerable if not for the game’s dreadful technical condition. Built on Unreal Engine 5, Samson looks phenomenal at first glance. But after a few minutes, multiple glitches and bugs make themselves felt. Characters and environmental elements often disappear. This even affects the main character – if it happens while he’s talking on the phone, you’ll only see the handset floating in the air. Sometimes a car might get stuck between a curb and a wall. Some technical issues are so severe that they cause mission failures. On top of that, Samson suffers from noticeable FPS drops at the worst possible times. Plainly an unfinished game.

One of these flickering moments when your car is still intact.

This title’s biggest strengths are probably the city’s atmosphere and the interesting day-management system. But, to be fair overall, Samson didn’t turn out very well. The combat, which constitutes the main core of gameplay, is undermined by repetitive animations and really strange enemy behaviour. Driving may actually be fun… if, of course, you are actually able to find any car nearby. A lot of technical issues drag the game down. It was simply released far too early. If the reviews haven’t discouraged you and you still want to try Samson out, at least wait for some patches. At the moment, it’s not really worth your time.

Samson is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Samson was provided by the publisher.