I'm sure we've seen our fair share of games trying to bring back the classic arena shooter to modern PC gaming, from Quake Champions fading to obscurity to the entirety of the Unreal franchise being erased from Epic Games' portfolio. Rather than retread familiar ground, Daev Team decided to take a left turn and have a story-based singleplayer game carry these familiar mechanics and level design.

Since this is meant to be invocative of 90s arena shooters, Ghostware is a game-within-a-game story where you died in the real world and are brought back from the dead with little memory of who you were in life, forced to fight against other undead spirits in a deserted multiplayer FPS by The Wizard, a stereotypical fat nerd reminiscing about the glory days (in his point of view) of multiplayer FPS where you've probably fond memories of spawning in as a free kill and getting ganked before you could even reach a weapon spawn with nothing to defend yourself with beyond a wimpy pea shooter.

As someone who has grown up with more than my fair share of ZDAEMON and Zandronum with a bit of UT2004 sprinkled on in my childhood, I was able to get into the setting of the game and while I do like how the lore tidbits are collected through URLs viewed through a totally-not-Netscape browser, it does get a little difficult and confusing to follow the game's backstory due to 90s web design being what it is.

For the better portion of the game, Ghostware can best be described as a stripped-down UT99 with fewer weapons, along with the addition of activated abilities that you can unlock as the story progresses. I personally don't mind how those abilities are implemented, though later ones that you unlock are definitely overpowered to the point where it'll be difficult to justify using whatever the upcoming Episode 2 has in store when you can just heal yourself willy-nilly during the more story-focused levels. I can say with full confidence that this game's definitely not for everyone but players who grew up with the old-school deathmatch games will likely be a fan of what Ghostware has in store

Being a game invocative of 90s multiplayer FPS, I can't help but think that progressing through the story or collecting certain pieces of lore should unlock levels and player models to use in the Instant Action mode. So far, the only things you get for that are the abilities you use in the Story Mode. One other nitpick I have is relating to a late game spoiler but personally, I think there should be a drastic change in artstyle in 03_CTF3 due to that map taking place in the real world. Sure, I get that the low-fidelity visuals are part of the game-within-a-game setting, though I think there should be a lot more in the way of visual distinction between the game world and touching (in-game) grass

Overall, this is definitely not a game for most people but I think this is definitely something to keep your eyes open for if you've grown up with the likes of Unreal Tournament and/or Quake 3 Arena.

[h1]Probably the best way for the 90s Arena shooter to take form[/h1] I'm sure we've seen our fair share of games trying to bring back the classic arena shooter to modern PC gaming, from Quake Champions fading to obscurity to the entirety of the Unreal franchise being erased from Epic Games' portfolio. Rather than retread familiar ground, Daev Team decided to take a left turn and have a story-based singleplayer game carry these familiar mechanics and level design. [h1]Story[/h1] Since this is meant to be invocative of 90s arena shooters, Ghostware is a game-within-a-game story where you died in the real world and are brought back from the dead with little memory of who you were in life, forced to fight against other undead spirits in a deserted multiplayer FPS by The Wizard, a stereotypical fat nerd reminiscing about the glory days (in his point of view) of multiplayer FPS where you've probably fond memories of spawning in as a free kill and getting ganked before you could even reach a weapon spawn with nothing to defend yourself with beyond a wimpy pea shooter. As someone who has grown up with more than my fair share of ZDAEMON and Zandronum with a bit of UT2004 sprinkled on in my childhood, I was able to get into the setting of the game and while I do like how the lore tidbits are collected through URLs viewed through a totally-not-Netscape browser, it does get a little difficult and confusing to follow the game's backstory due to 90s web design being what it is. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] For the better portion of the game, Ghostware can best be described as a stripped-down UT99 with fewer weapons, along with the addition of activated abilities that you can unlock as the story progresses. I personally don't mind how those abilities are implemented, though later ones that you unlock are definitely overpowered to the point where it'll be difficult to justify using whatever the upcoming Episode 2 has in store when you can just heal yourself willy-nilly during the more story-focused levels. I can say with full confidence that this game's definitely not for everyone but players who grew up with the old-school deathmatch games will likely be a fan of what Ghostware has in store [h1]Other[/h1] Being a game invocative of 90s multiplayer FPS, I can't help but think that progressing through the story or collecting certain pieces of lore should unlock levels and player models to use in the Instant Action mode. So far, the only things you get for that are the abilities you use in the Story Mode. One other nitpick I have is relating to a late game spoiler but [spoiler]personally, I think there should be a drastic change in artstyle in 03_CTF3 due to that map taking place in the real world. Sure, I get that the low-fidelity visuals are part of the game-within-a-game setting, though I think there should be a lot more in the way of visual distinction between the game world and touching (in-game) grass[/spoiler] Overall, this is definitely not a game for most people but I think this is definitely something to keep your eyes open for if you've grown up with the likes of Unreal Tournament and/or Quake 3 Arena.