I love oldschool FPS’s, but somehow the whole boomer shooter resurgence just passed me by. I just finished Boltgun on the hardest difficulty and had a great time, would love to hear some other suggestions
There are a lot to sift through, but I recommend:
- Nightmare Reaper You play as a woman sent to an asylum and the battle is against the horrors within her head. It has tons of fun weapons, enemies, and challenges.
- AMID EVIL A magic themed FPS that reminds me a lot of Hexen/Hexic. It has a superb soundtrack as well.
- Forgive Me Father A horrific adventure to fight a cult and its otherworldly summonings. Has a perk progression system that sets it apart from most.
Nightmare Reaper is an absolute blast. I found it scrolling YouTube a year or so back and have enjoyed almost every minute with it.
I haven’t tried Amid Evil yet, just the VR edition. The VR version has been incredible so far.
If VR is of any interest Compound is another great game. It gets more into rogue-like territory but the Doom era inspirations are apparent immediately
ULTRAKILL is the most fun I’ve had with an oldschool FPS in ages. The difficulty ramps up perfectly, it’s super approachable for new players, and the skill ceiling for what you can do when you’re good is absolutely insane. The soundtrack is also fire.
Clips like this make me want to do another playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdHVt7cTwXc
Prodeus hasn’t been mentioned and is excellent
I second this.
I’d throw Painkiller into the ring. I still think of “shurikens and lightning” whenever I think of it https://youtu.be/qk7DlYcQ0uM
Both those look awesome! Dusk especially looks right up my alley, but I just bought both on Steam, will be starting with dusk tonight :)
Dusk is fantastic.
Ion Fury:
It doesn‘t try to emmulate the look and feel of those build engine games like shadow warrior or duke nukem 3d… because it is one of them.
It is legitimately running on a modernized source port of the build engine. It has fantastic level design. It somehow feels modern and old at the same time. If you grew up playing games from that era this one is a must play imo
Absolute romp. Loved my time with Ion Fury. I’d also recommend Turbo Overkill, and for something a bit slower – more akin to System Shock – Hyper Violent.
It’s been a while since I played it, but Sauerbraten / Cube 2 had a very old-school FPS vibe to it. It’s open source, so just download and play.
HROT is a great, stylized boomer shooter if you’ve got a kick for eastern Europe/Soviet-era architecture.
As mentioned here, DUSK is GOATed I can personally attest to that.
ULTRAKILL i need to spend more time in, loved what i played but i haven’t had the time to perfect my play in it
I fondly recall Strife. It’s a bit like if you wrote an actual story in the Doom engine.
Prodeus!
It’s in PC Game Pass if you’re subscribed to it by any chance
Otherwise it’s $25 on Steam
It’s a shame that the devs will never fix the checkpoint system, it kind of ruined the game for me.
POSTAL: Brain Damaged is an interesting shooter in this genre, and a faithful addition to the series.
Excellent suggestions all around in the comments! I own all of these XD There is one that wasn’t mentioned that I would highly recommend. Dread Templar is a good one.
If you haven’t already played them, check out the OG Doom and Quake games, those are still great. Either the Steam releases or one of the gazillion source ports.
I just played Prodeus, and it was great, I especially loved the graphics.
People rave about the New Blood Interactive games, but I have yet to really play them. Ultrakill, Amid Evil, Dusk, and a few others. Those could be worth checking out.
Check this thread. AFAIK, the author updates it regularily.
From me, personally, I very much recommend Dusk, Prodeus, Ion Fury and Cultic!
