Dusk (2018)

Dusk feels like both the itch that Quake fans need scratched and a step into something much more nightmarish and creative - a first person shooter with a lot of appeal in its dark recesses.

The game has the player controlling a treasure hunter infiltrating a rural town with Lovecraftian ruins embedded within - over three episodes this explorer will fight through spooky country outskirts, a besieged industrial complex, and the dark dimension at the core of Dusk. While starting out fairly straightforward (think Blood), the real meat of the game comes in a variety of strange and sometimes non-Euclidian level design, as well as an additional degree of rotation in mid-air (for cool rolls and flips!). With a great emphasis on speed and quick shooting the player will find themselves in some tough situations but every weapon (pistol, super shotgun, crossbow, explosive goodies) is very useful and can be utilized for the legion of enemies contained within.

Enemies feel well suited to the world of Dusk (scarecrows, soldiers, cultists) and some demonic forces can be quite terrifying to reveal to the player. In Quake fashion the game will often surprise the player with wall reveals, teleports, and gauntlets of foes. The weakest parts of the game might be the bosses but a quicksave on hand and some tight corners may help these cheesy battles.

The visuals and music are especially delicious and horrifying to behold. Rural Pennsylvania is loving recreated here, with low-res textures, limited palette, and focus on dark and blood-red colors to unnerve the player. The music goes between ambient darkness and metal shredding but the most effective noises might be the disturbing screams and breaths of each unique enemy that help cue the player and terrify them.

With 30 (+ 3 secret) levels, an online deathmatch, and mod support, Dusk feels like a truly full package and pairs curious exploration, effective scares, and tough as nails shooting to make a wonderful shooter experience.

This is peak boomer shooter design IMO. Not only does it feel like a tasteful and thoughtful homage, in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, but it also feels genuinely clever and is a total blast to play. The gameplay feels so fluid and most importantly, you're given a swagger button that allows you to spin your guns. This can be used as a melee attack, but that's ill advised. Still sometimes it's better to be stylish than efficient. Even if it results in an untimely death that is 100% your fault.

The enemy design, variety, punchiness of ALL the weapons, level design, sense of humor, legit great horror moments, masterclass atmosphere and phenomenal music make this a must play if you like shooters or the boomer shooter genre. You are firmly empowered, but the game cleverly subverts this empowerment. Whether by starting each chapter with only your sickle weapons (truth be told I'm not the biggest fan of this design. I get that this is a call back to these types of shareware but it never feels good to reset) or profoundly more clever moments when the game takes away your flashlight. This game uses light not only for an appealing horror aesthetic, but also to define atmosphere. Creating a lingering darkness and dread.

Some notes on weapons that weren't really clear to me until I beat the game: The crossbow can pierce through walls and objects in addition to enemies. If I realized it pierced through almost everything sooner, besides enemies, I would have used it SO MUCH more. I still found it very useful when fighting hordes of enemies. Still, being able to hide below or around a corners to take out enemies through walls or floors would have substantially increased my use of the weapon. In addition, the crossbow has a kickback. If you aim it down while in the air you can fly up! Which I didn't realize. This can be used to sequence break and other shenanigans. The rivet gun is one of the best rocket launchers in ANY shooter. It can be used to rocket jump, like in Quake, but it's also one of your best options for tougher enemies. The hunting rifle is basically a long ranged super shotgun. Extremely useful for not only taking out tough enemies, but sniping annoying enemies from far away. There's more, but I think these tips are all extremely useful to know going into the game. Enjoy purging the heretics and saving humanity! The only weapon that feels lackluster are the pistols. They aren't bad by any means, but every other weapon feels useful and doesn't really become obsolete. Though I also didn't use the dual wield pump action shotguns once I got the super shotgun. Still, it's undeniable this is one of the best arsenals in any shooter.

Another aspect that really elevates this game for me is how it's a pseudo immersive sim. You can't always do this, but the game, especially in the first chapter, allows you to sequence break by cleverly manipulating the environment. Such as stacking barrels or boxes to jump over a locked door or barrier. No need for that red key! And some truly powerful secrets are often hidden behind these immersive sim sequence breaks. Encouraging you to do this. Also soap is overpowered. No joke. Pick it up and throw it at a boss and they will die in one hit. You can also tele-frag one boss for an instant kill.

One esoteric aspect of this game, which I didn't know until the penultimate boss, was how you can move absurdly fast by bunny hopping like in Quake. This is never explained to you, but shown to you with how the penultimate boss moves. He's basically you which makes for a great boss encounter and world building. All done without dumping a needless amount of dialogue or narrative. Not knowing this did make a few boss encounters way harder. There's two bosses you fight back to back that are kind of like giant deer that breath a fast barrage of fireballs. The only way to dodge this is to take cover, or bunny hop. You don't move fast enough when circle strafing. If only I knew I could bunny hop before fighting the last boss! I guess I'll have to play this game again! What a shame.

I think what most impressed me is how much this game constantly escalates until the very end. Both thematically, aesthetically and in terms of its challenge. Making for a very satisfying game to beat that doesn't overstay its welcome. Nothing feels like padding. The game starts grounded and by the 3rd chapter becomes utter madness to reinforce it's themes of cosmic horror. You can tell that this Indy team was deeply passionate and love the games that clearly inspired their game.

Some random thoughts I had during the last chapter:

e3m4 changes the tone and atmosphere of game into a pure horror game. No flashlight and introduces a terrifying new horror. The sound deign is masterclass and constantly unnerves you while hinting at the horrors lurking around the corners. e3m6 only time where I got legit lost and it felt cheap finding the way forward. Had to shoot a vent which might be the first time in the game where you need to do that to progress. I'm sure there are plenty of vents you can destroy earlier in the game for secrets. Definitely didn't find those secrets lol e3m7 ran into bug where game reloaded me midair and I got kinda stuck in limbo. I managed to escape but certainly was a bug and not intentional. Almost made me reset the level.

This is an easy recommend for October. It's spooky season so more horror games to come. Perhaps Luigi's Mansion and Silent Hill 2 next!

Dusk is a retro-inspired FPS that fuses horror and action into an unforgettable experience. I had a blast playing it.

Variety is the spice of life and Dusk has variety to spare. Its inspired by Quake 2, where it uses a narrative to connect levels that otherwise could stand on their own. Unlike Quake 2, Dusk’s levels are not limited to corridors, but extend into wide open arenas and take place over a variety of locales making every level feel unique and memorable. I personally loved the massive arenas where I’m fighting 50+ enemies at once.

Speaking of enemies, there is an insane amount of variety on display here. We have scarecrows, witches, rats and cattle on one end, soldiers and turrets on another and even eldritch monstrosities and horribly disfigured humans and animals on another. On the surface these all seem unconnected and its easy to make this comparison to Quake 1, but the simple narrative ties these enemy types together. Along with the variety of enemies, there is the variety of weapons all of which feel satisfying to use with none of the weapons being underpowered or lacking ammo.

Dusk attempts to use its variety in maps, locales, enemies and weapons to portray horror, as well as action. One minute you’re in a dimly lit corridor being stalked by enemies you can’t see and your flashlight’s broken to being surrounded by 20 enemies and you’re blasting away in another. What allows the game to juggle these two genres is not only its gorgeous art style and its effective use of lighting, but also its excellent soundtrack.

Dusk’s soundtrack is the glue that ties the pieces together. Composed my Andrew Hulshult, it effectively transitions from moody discomfort to pulsing action, to quiet cues that hint you being stalked to the roars of a group of enemies. It’s a game that is best experienced with headphones.

Dusk also gives the player a lot of graphics options, allowing you to change the pixelation, filters, textures and lighting to make the game fit whatever era you want it to within the boomer shooter timeframe. Want a game that looks like a N64 port? You can do that. Want it to look like Quake before the remaster? You can do that. What about after the remaster? You can do that. Want it to look like you’re back in the 90’s playing on a Windows 95 computer on a CRT monitor? You can even do that.

Dusk is a really good time and the campaign lasts around 8-11 hours. I would give it a 4/5 as its constituent parts are all 4/5, but the seamless juggling of horror and action together with the variety of weapons, enemies, maps and locations, tied together with an easy-to-follow story and killer soundtrack elevates it to a 5/5. I cannot recommend it enough.

I'm not a boomer shooter fan, in general. I played Doom once and it was fine but I'd be fine if I never play again. This homage to Doom was fun in the way that a goofy b-movie is fun. Not a good, goofy B movie like Army of Darkness but a decent late night TV one that's fun to watch but easy to turn off if you get too tired. It took me 14 months to get exactly halfway through the chapters and 4 days to get through the second half. It was less fun when I was cramming it in, partly because it felt more repetitive.

I would never have made it to the end without cheats but I did manage to get pretty far on my own. I can definitely appreciate when a game gives you the tools to enjoy it fully even when you kind of suck.

Dusk has started the boomer shooter indie-subgenre. I am a big fan of the old Doom and Quake games and something that really never is understood about these games by gaming journalists and critics is actually the essential idea of Dusk:

That these old games are not only historically important because of their then innovative mechanics, but they're just in general great games because of a superior and unique aesthetic design.

Dusk reproduces the old school 3d art style (more Quake-leaning than Doom-leaning here), the satisfying hell horror-clichee sound design ('KILL HIM!') and even the great UI design of the menus.

Something that Dusk did not get quite right is the map design. As in the old ones you're collecting keys and then have to backtrack, in general you need map awareness to understand where to go next.

I hate backtracking but the old Doom games really made the design of the map to a puzzle where you have to be attentive towards your surroundings, second next steps are hinted at, and you have to be aware of your iternary as a whole.

Dusk is less subtle, it really mostly just lets you backtrack and has very obvious structures. I didn't enjoy looking and then finding where to go next as I did in Doom.

Anyway, Dusk is the starting point for this subgenre and deserves its respect.

Quake visuals and mechanics, Blood style. Level design is quite unorthodox, though. Secrets within secrets, and some of those are hard to find to begin with. And I think some levels contain multiple keys of the same color.

Speaking of secrets, there are different styles of secrets in games. Destructible objects. Explosive walls. Secret walls. Fake walls. Hidden buttons. Shooting buttons. Unpaved paths. Jump secrets. Teleport secrets. Usually, games establish that they’re doing just a subset of those. Quake does maybe 3-4 of those. Duke Nukem 3D or more widely the Build Engine games, which are notorious for their secretes, do most of them. Dusk does all of them.

One one level, there’s a baseball hoop, which is quite an obvious cue. But the baseball itself is found in another secret. The only way I found about this is from a video guide.

I like that there are three bosses just in the first episode. Even though the second boss is just a pair of regular cultist enemies that got enlarged. Entire Prodeus had just a single boss in it.
Enemies that are invisible until shot, but that leave blood trails are quite fun. Also, the mechanic of breaking your flashlight a couple of times during the game, and spending time in darkness is interesting for a Quake-like.
Other suprises: powerup that lets you climb walls, like in Alien vs Predator games. It’s awkward, but still interesting. While the first episode was more Blood/Redneck Rampage in terms of level design, the second episode has more of a industrial Quake or even Quake 2 feel. Which I like slightly less.
One of my complaints is that weapons are hard to distinguish from each other. Mortar looks just like Riveter, local version of the Rocket Launcher.
Riveter is great against bosses. It's like a combination of a rocket launcher and a machine gun, and simply shreds most of them to pieces in seconds. But my favorite weapon is the Hunting Rifle. Works just like a railgun. There's also the Crossbow that even pierces walls, but it was harder to find until Episode 3, and it has that weird recoil that bounces you back.
The Sword is available since Episode 1, albeit it's usually found in secrets. But it's still strange they don't explain how to use it properly until Episode 3. You can charge attack with it, but only with full health. And you can block attacks for chip damage, but only until you have two thirds health left.
Tornado destroying a church is super impressive. Changing gravity in "Homecoming" is interesting, but was a bit too much, so I tried to finish this level as quickly as possible. Prefinal arena throws everything at you, including some former bosses. Then the final level has two bosses, which is great. One is basically a player, with the same move speed and arsenal of weapons. And the second one is a huge Ancient One.

Do you ever feel that if you wanted to review a game that is basically a re-imagination of a game, its like, well i already reviewed that game to some extent, what is the point in deeply analyzing or accessing DUSK if we all are aware it is a clone of Quake? I think most reviews of Dusk can be left on that alone: If you like Quake and all those classic FPS games, chances are you’ll like this game. Of course there is a lot more to be said of that, for a single person to even be able to recreate what was considered the golden standard of games in the past in itself is highly impressive.

Some sequels or inspired games are a little too on the nose so for a lot of people trying to review them it’ll be like: what even is there to say about these games, other than: It is what it is. What do they do other than doing the same that hasn't been done in a while? It's the equivalent of seeing a musician cover songs at a bar, and you are like "I sure do know those songs", and sometimes the musician will cover “All we are in dust in the wind” at a public space in a more cheerful take and you will seem to be the only one who is concerned because you actually think about things.

Again! If you are into the twitch style 9 million DPI shooter games where you never have to reload! Here’s another one for ya, go support the developer because you are getting into it sooner or later, if anything this was one of the first ones to kickstart that fad of bringing back oldschool FPS games, sitting on the top of it’s throne as the golden standard (because many people can honestly mess up the whole trying to live up to what is considered retro and good). While Dusk is not Weezer's Africa to Quake’s Toto, I would say that it is Disturbed’s Land of Confusion (It doesn’t sound that different and honestly it does justice to the original song, HOWEVER, it is literally a cover done by Disturbed and it shows that enough).

I guess Dusk introducing physics is kinda funny every now and then, it then becomes: Quake but you get some Gravity Gun moments in which you can throw saws or a bar of soap to kill enemies instantly. You could say Dusk is slightly different from what it is inspired by because of how tilted it is, later on in the game Dusk relies heavily on the fact that there is tilting and sliding, that’s like Dusk secret ingredient

Anyways going back to what I got at: it is kinda hard to review Dusk because it is basically more of the same of what you kinda of expect, is it hard to achieve such a clone from an indie team? I’d assume so, but it is just as equally as hard to comment on. Sure, trying to put your head space into design ideas that haven't been popular since 1999 probably took some time, like I'd imagine you'd have to immerse yourself in nothing but a period stuck in time to achieve something like this, having no fall damage is VERY cool though, especially when Dusk begins to have more open spaces, I don’t remember if Unreal (which was a very open FPS game) had any fall damage but the fact that this game doesn’t have fall damage and later on plays with large falls is amazing.

Oh and I guess the level design having a consecutive story to it is somewhat unique to comment, most of these type of games don't have an over-aching plot of any kind (or any at all) and are just base after base after base. Random map after random map, there is no connection between the maps in a lot of old FPS games, Dusk goes out of the way to go: HEY REMEMBER THIS MAP, this map is connected to that map, it makes it’s world more immersive.

But yea most reviews of this type of game can simply end on "Hey you like FPS games where you didn’t have to reload? You'll probably like this", on a darker note, and remembering the time of games like this and how they were common, it’s funny to think that doom clones were once blamed for school shootings, these games aren't even anything RELATED to real guns or the act of real shooting, a doom clone gun has as much relevance to guns that an arm cannon would. They are completely alien to any semblance of reality at all. Dusk’s gun models take that to another level, they are so blocky that it is hard to tell what they’re even inspired by.

Some people are attracted to this game merely because of the blockiness (even if sometimes there’s a dissonance on what is made with more effort and what isn’t). The game too HD for ya? Too much frame rates and sleek clean models? Breaking the immersion of you wanting to go back to a pre-9/11 world? You can make Dusk go from ps1 graphics to Nintendo 64 graphics (muddy textures instead of crusty ones), you can customize everything honestly, one of the benefits of living in this modern world is that obsession FPS games fans have with customizing every single aspect of a game, and essentially this is as modular as a retro-inspired game might get, so it’s not just a generic retro game but Retro Game: Modernized, I guess you could give yourself a concussion and try to trick yourself to thinking this is a re-release of an old classic game you used to play in your childhood for extra immersion, like Quake RTX.

So far in this review, I’ve been giving this game who’s unforgivable crime is trying to live up to classics non-stop shit on trying to be too much what it is inspired by, like the video game equivalent of Oasis… BUT THEN… Then Episode 2 kicks in, I’d argue that Episode 1 has some flaws (map design wise with a few gripes, sometimes doors look like walls is one of the things I remember) and clearly was just testing the waters out to see if people were interested in a retro FPS game, Episode 2 actually goes out to do more things than just be yet another FPS clone.

Basically: Dusk felt generic at first but then the last world had some Super Mario Galaxy things going on, and a lot of Dusk around the second episode starts to play more freely with it’s design and dive more into what it is good at: Arena like FPS gameplay with high speed tilting by constantly strafing around things, bullet hell circumstances, extreme jumps from high heights and a large number of enemies neatly placed to go through. Episode 2 gives more opportunities for one to slide more often and try to shoot enemies while you do so, the air control from the large heights Episode 2 sets you in also becomes one of Dusk’s major factors. I really do feel as if that sensation only kicks in a little later into the game.

This is shown more with the more experimental levels get that are legitimately fun, like I haven’t seen an FPS game try this Mario-level experimention in a long time, it reminds me a lot of those multiplayer gimmick maps one would download that were obviously made by someone trying to introduce some more artsy fartsy aspects to stick out in the map community. I was always a fan of the weird maps Half Life / Counter Strike would download that weren’t just a serious bland realistic setting.

And even though the game literally just starts off as just Quake-inspired, it starts introducing some more mechanics that freshen up the experience the more you go, some that are straight from an Arena shooter and make the game feel as fun as one, there are scenarios where I got more than one rapid fire power up and it resulted in me shooting extremely fast. Not only that but these power ups make beginner weapons fun again to use and still extremely useful if some enemies still take more bullets. That was nice.

One of the other modernizing aspects, it was something that was there since the start but becomes more apparent the more you experiment as time goes with the game, is that you can play this retro FPS game in any way do you want, we live in a world now where challenges are well known to be apparent, so might as well make them all officially a part of the game and invite players to do whatever they want.

Dusk is a simplified take on retro FPS games, actually that dismisses all of it's complex accomplishments, it is a CONCENTRATED take on retro FPS games, like Orange Juice of sorts. It strives to do some things but it is mostly those wonderful expensive Orange Juice cartons that have all 12 varieties of Orange Juice into one ULTIMATE ORANGE JUICE (in this case, getting all of the loved elements from past games and condensing them), it is a game that unapologetically is concentrated on delivering you what you want, A RETRO FPS GAME. It doesn't need to reinvent the wheel that much (which again ignores that what it does is special in it's own way, whenever it be open-ended good level design which you can go about many ways despite looking like a linear game) because it works with what it has and it does that job well. In a world with ideas that hit and miss, a game that actually just delivers is GREAT.

The game is filled with little touches just by introducing a little modern physics engine, you can interact with certain things, use certain boxes to skip entire segments and the game is well designed enough that it doesn’t mind that you do this or even considers that you would, you can even beat the game without killing a single enemy! It is game that obviously shamelessly takes inspiration from what it is inspired by but as time goes it starts being it’s own thing as it mixes more and more from what it is inspired rather than just linearly recreating it...Anyways if you like Quake you’ll probably like this game.