Retro first-person shooters have gained in popularity over the last few years. Games like Project Warlock, Ion Maiden, STRAFE, SEUM, and Devil Daggers have proven there is still a large audience for stylized, old-school FPS mayhem.
Of these, DUSK is arguably the most successful in evoking the enjoyment and atmosphere of the ’90s shooters. The term “methenamine-injected, face-shredding, balls-deep-in-gore murder simulator” is bandied about a lot these days, but DUSK feels more than deserving of this description. Not since DOOM 2016 has a FPS felt so energetic, ultraviolent, and satisfyingly playable. At its best, DUSK is more addictive than crack-flavored Oreos.
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The unnamed protagonist (known as DuskGuy, DuskDude, or DuskBro) wakes up, as we all have at some point, chained up in a dungeon with rednecks about to gut him alive with chainsaws. His day just gets worse from there as he begins a journey of wanton destruction through spooky corn fields, ruined ghost towns, and ultimately to other dimensions.
Many of the old-skool shooter staples report for duty. You grab colored keycards to progress through levels; pick up health packs and ‘morale’ boosts (armor); the trusty shotgun turns your foes into a red spray of chunky flesh soup; you’ll spend much of your time circle-strafing around enemies making them shit lead, and smashing SAVE GAME when you manage to progress a little bit further is a must.
But this is where DUSK succeeds: by knowing exactly what it is. DUSK isn’t a roguelike, a bullet-hell shooter, or speed-running platformer. It’s a balls-out, cultist gibbin’, double-barreled fragfest with an actual campaign.
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DUSK isn’t a mere clone, either. It adds many new ideas to the tried and tested formula. You’ll see far more bad guys on screen than Quake. You run at a break-neck speed, sprinting around the maps like Usain Bolt after a wasabi enema (literally every FPS I’ve played post-DUSK feels like you are navigating a sloth through quicksand).
Jump pads let you bounce around the map like you have Flubber in your shoes while doing rad-ass flips. DUSK also gives you the ability to carry and throw objects, letting you build ramps to secret places otherwise out of reach, and one-shot enemies by chucking a bar of soap at them. There are Power-ups you can pick up which give your guns Arnie-level rapid fire, run directly up walls and even sync time to your movement speed for some bullet-time antics.
It’s hard to say what someone born after Y2K would make of DUSK’S graphics, but for me the blocky 3D models and low rez textures gave it stylized, gritty beauty not found in many other modern titles. Although the opening levels embrace a monochrome 50-shades-of-outhouse palette, the game soon becomes more visually varied as it alternates between stark, foggy minimalism and eye-popping psychedelic-neon at the drop of a shotgun shell.
The enemies include invisible demon-deer, chainsaw welding killbillies, skull spewing bone blobs, and the dreaded RATS. Like Blood 3D and Hexen II, the tiniest creatures prove to be the biggest pain in the ass as they gnaw at your ankles while you expend precious ammo at the ground.
There is a good variation of baddies, although an uneven proportion of them rely on firing shotgun-style projectiles in your general direction. A few of the models are a little awkward looking but they generally fit with the aesthetic. DUSK sets up some epic boss fights, (especially during the game’s climax) which felt genuinely challenging but never unfair.
The weapon lineup features the FPS staples, handgun, shotgun (both can be welded Guns Akimbo-style), double-barreled shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher and the ‘rivet gun’: essentially the RPG.
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Additionally, a powerful hunter’s rifle lets you snipe enemies from afar, while the crossbow shoots green bolts through walls and creatures, allowing you to multi-kill your way through clustered hordes.
You start off in melee mode with double sickles, which are about as effective as charging Normandy Beach with a medium-softness pillow. Later you get to trade the sickles in for my favorite weapon, a bad-ass MAGIC SWORD. When powered up, it lets you deflect enemy projectiles back towards them and slash with an effective instakill attack.
Even the best game can feel directionless without the right music. Fortunately, the talented Andrew Hulshult (who also laid down tracks for Quake Champions) nails the mood, alternating from gloomy atmospheric strings, demonic choirs, and a metal-up-your-ass heavy sonic pummeling which will have you throwing horns as you eviscerate heathens. This soundtrack is screaming out for a vinyl release.
Like its flannel-wearing ’90s forbears, DUSK is broken into episodes:“The Foothills,“ “The Facilities,“ and “The Nameless City.“ You start off in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, rampaging through sack-masked rednecks and possessed scarecrows. As you progress, the grain silos and barns are exchanged for industrial buildings, huge machines, and military complexes where you discover that the scientists have been conducting unholy experiments near the town of Dusk.
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The final episode is where the game really turns it up to 11. You blast your way through ancient cathedrals, lay waste to endless hordes of bizarre creatures, and traverse levels which defy the laws of gravity while questioning your character’s mental faculties. DUSK manages to even feel more Lovecraftian than Quake, a game which never fully committed to the mind-melting insanity of the Cthulhu mythos.
Episode 3 is the game equivalent of the Panos Cosmatos film Mandy. I felt like Nicolas Cage’s character Red – coked up, trippin’ balls, and ready to slice and dice my way through some cult members.
Although you’ll often find yourself stalking around vantablack-dark claustrophobic corridors, the best moments are when the game opens out to huge areas teeming with evil monsters who unleash a bulletnado towards you. More evocative of DOOM II than anything in Quake, these white-knuckle massacres were exhilarating and always left me feeling like a gun-toting demigod when the last body hit the floor.
The 10+ hours I spent with DUSK took me back to a simpler time. A time when all-night LAN parties were more fun than actual parties, “X-Files night” was observed religiously, and parents thought Marilyn Manson was the downfall of civilization. A time when shareware demo discs contained a third of the game and when your Mom picking up the phone during a dukematch meant game over.
DUSK is the answer to the question “what if Blood II was actually awesome?” It’s the sum of many parts torn from my favorite ’90s games, expertly Frankensteined together with 10,000 volts of light speed gameplay sent into its nervous system, turning it into something that feels nostalgic, yet fresh and original.
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