Samson Review: Playstation 5 Pro

The modern video game industry has developed a crippling addiction to scale. Across the action-adventure landscape, developers continuously chase the horizon, filling hundred-hour, sprawling open worlds with endless checklists, meaningless collectibles, and heavily bloated skill trees. 

It is a design philosophy that often dilutes the core experience, substituting genuine tension with mere busywork. Samson, the debut (and tragically, the final) title from Swedish development studio Liquid Swords, serves as a violent, unapologetic rejection of this contemporary trend.

Dropping the player directly onto the rain-slicked, unforgiving streets of a forgotten industrial city, Samson is a game defined entirely by unrelenting pressure. It is a tightly wound, remarkably focused, and heavily grounded brawler-meets-driver that strips away the excesses of the modern AAA industry to deliver a white-knuckle, twelve-hour panic attack. 

It is a fascinating, deeply flawed, and undeniably gripping piece of interactive media, though playing it on the PlayStation 5 today carries the heavy, inescapable spectre of the devastating real-world circumstances that brought it to our screens.

Story

The narrative of Samson operates on a refreshingly intimate, grounded scale. Players step into the shoes of Samson McCray, a deeply exhausted, heavily flawed man who has reluctantly returned to his decaying hometown of Tyndalston after a failed heist in St. Louis. He is back out of sheer, suffocating desperation to pay off a colossal financial debt to an underground syndicate and save the life of his sister, Oonagh, who is currently being held as collateral.

This is a gritty, unglamorous crime thriller that does not shy away from the ugly realities of poverty, systemic corruption, and familial desperation. Tyndalston itself acts as the game’s secondary protagonist. It is an incredibly well-realised setting. This rust-belt purgatory left behind by economic progress is characterised by crumbling concrete overpasses, perpetually glowing neon signs buzzing through the fog, and a populace that has entirely given up on the concept of hope.

The story unfolds largely through frantic, panicked radio calls during high-speed getaways, tense standoffs in dimly lit back alleys, and quiet, melancholic moments of reflection in your dilapidated safehouse between jobs. The syndicate you are indebted to is represented by cruel, calculating middlemen who view human life purely as a depreciating asset.

The voice acting is remarkably raw and authentic. The central performance captures the bone-deep exhaustion of a protagonist who knows he is fighting a losing battle against a heavily rigged system. The dialogue feels improvised and messy in the best possible way, featuring overlapping shouts, breathless apologies, and frantic negotiations. It is a surprisingly intimate, emotionally resonant narrative that relies entirely on the strength of its central sibling relationship to keep you invested through the overwhelming violence of the gameplay loop.

 

 

Gameplay

The mechanical structure of Samson is inextricably linked to the oppressive concepts of time and money, operating on a gruelling daily loop. Every morning you wake up in your safehouse, the UI immediately displays a ticking clock and an ever-growing debt counter.

You are forced to venture out into Tyndalston and take on increasingly dangerous, morally compromising jobs to meet your daily payment quota. If you fail to secure the necessary funds before midnight, the syndicate sends heavily armed collectors after you, turning the city into a hostile, terrifying hunting ground.

This creates a palpable, suffocating sense of anxiety that permeates every single mission. You are never playing just for fun; you are playing to survive the day.

When boots are on the ground, the combat heavily favours visceral, close-quarters brawling, actively eschewing the graceful, rhythmic freeflow combat popularised by the Batman: Arkham series.

Fights in Samson are heavy, impactful, and incredibly messy. Samson is a capable street fighter, but he gets winded. The stamina bar is restrictive, requiring you to carefully manage your energy during encounters where you are almost always outgunned and outnumbered.

To survive, you must rely on desperate parries, raw momentum, and a brutal environmental contextual system. You will smash enemies into brick walls, throw them over the hoods of rusted cars, and utilise discarded lead pipes and heavy wrenches to even the odds. It is a system that rewards situational awareness and sheer aggression over complex combo memorisation, making every victorious encounter feel like a desperate, skin-of-your-teeth triumph.

The driving mechanics are equally violent and purposefully cumbersome.

Vehicles in Tyndalston are heavy, lumbering beasts that handle like the rusted metal boxes they are. Samson treats cars as blunt instruments to be used in high-speed, highly destructive chases across industrial wastelands and narrow city grids.

The physics engine ensures that every collision carries tremendous weight. There are no clean getaways here. You will find yourself desperately trying to keep a stolen, heavily damaged sedan running on two blown tires while syndicate enforcers attempt to run you off an overpass. The driving is frantic, error-prone, and exhilarating.

 

 

Audio and Performance

The PlayStation 5 version of Samson arrives after a highly mixed, technically troubled reception on PC, bringing with it a suite of necessary performance patches and visual updates that significantly improve the console experience.

Utilising Unreal Engine 5, the rain-soaked streets, dense volumetric fog, and neon-lit industrial zones of Tyndalston look appropriately grim and highly atmospheric. The DualSense controller integration is notably excellent, translating the heavy crunch of a car crash and the visceral thud of a melee strike directly into the palms of your hands.

The sound design is uniformly fantastic; the screeching of tires on wet tarmac, the sickening crunch of breaking glass, and the heavy synth-bass soundtrack all contribute to the game’s unrelenting atmosphere of urban decay.

However, the digital grit of Tyndalston is tragically, inescapably mirrored by the devastating real-world collapse of the studio that built it. It is impossible to review Samson without discussing the heartbreaking fate of Liquid Swords. Following a buggy initial PC launch in April 2026 that failed to generate the necessary revenue to keep the studio afloat, the company faced an immediate, severe financial crisis.

In a shocking testament to the volatility of the current gaming industry, the staff at Liquid Swords went completely unpaid from August 2026 onwards. Despite this, the development team continued to work, pushing out crucial performance patches and finalising this PlayStation 5 port out of sheer passion and dedication to their art.

This gruelling period culminated in the studio being declared officially bankrupt in mid-October. Currently, the Swedish state has had to step in to legally cover the back-wages of the approximately 30 affected developers while a buyer for the studio’s assets is desperately sought.

Playing Samson on the PS5 today is a profoundly surreal experience. It feels like walking through a beautifully constructed, highly functional digital ghost town, every turn giving a glimpse of unfulfilled potential.

Every polished mechanic, every beautifully lit alleyway, and every intense encounter serves as a bittersweet reminder of the immense talent possessed by a team that was ultimately crushed by the harsh financial realities of game development.

Editions and Extras

In keeping with its focused, no-nonsense design philosophy, Samson is priced aggressively as a mid-tier release, available physically and digitally for a Standard Edition price of just £19.99.

There are no convoluted deluxe editions, no season passes, no cosmetic microtransaction stores, and no roadmap for future content. It is a single, complete package that tells a definitive story from beginning to end.

Given the absolute financial collapse of the development studio, this is undoubtedly the only version of the game we will ever see. What is on the disc is all there is, representing a remarkably pure, untampered slice of the developers’ original vision, flaws and all.

Verdict

Samson is a grim, heartbreaking swansong for a studio that clearly possessed immense talent, a distinct creative voice, and a unique, uncompromising vision. It is certainly not a flawless game. It still suffers from occasional camera issues in tight interior combat spaces, and the brutal difficulty spikes in the late-game driving missions border on the masochistic.

Yet, it possesses a distinct, unapologetic identity and an anxiety-inducing rhythm that demands deep appreciation. 

It actively respects your time, offering a tightly paced thrill ride that ends before it outstays its welcome – although likely by financial constraints than by design. 

At its accessible mid-tier price point, Samson is a compelling, high-stakes action game that serves as a vital, bittersweet testament to the incredible hard work, passion, and sacrifice of a development team that deserved much, much better from this industry. 

It is a flawed gem, but one that shines with a gritty brilliance that is hard to forget.