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Dusk is incredibly faithful with its throwback to the stylings of Quake and Blood, expertly recapturing the lightning-fast action and pulse-pounding challenge of classic shooters while immersing you in a horror-influenced setting. It brings plenty of its own ideas in alongside the elements essential for a great FPS, and with a level editor coming out soon I'm looking forward to clocking just as much time with it as I've spent on Doom & Quake mods.


Dusk's gameplay has everything a throwback shooter should strive for: you run fast, have incredible air control, spray lead death from the hip with pinpoint accuracy and no recoil, rocket jumps don't hurt much so you won't be afraid to use them, and most importantly, you can bunny hop to go so fast that it'd make Sonic The Hedgehog blush. Whereas in games like Quake and Counter-Strike bunny hopping was a quirk of the engine that required a good deal of practice to properly get a hold of, in Dusk it's a very intentional feature so using it is far more simple, so players of any skill level can integrate it into their arsenal. Basically, just keep jumping without letting go of the movement keys and you'll be zooming around like a ♥♥♥♥♥-up Doomguy who joined an acrobatics team!

The fantastic movement controls are exactly what you'd want out of a modern arena shooter, and are only further complemented by how the guns handle. Simply put, you have a crosshair, and bar a couple of niche weapons like the arcing bombs of the mortar your shots are always going to land -exactly- where that crosshair is pointed. It even lets you zoom your view in a bit if you're trying to land long-distance shots, without tying that zoom to some kind of anti-hipfire ironsights system. On top of this, Dusk truly understands that hitscan enemies have little place in this genre, so every ranged enemy (even the ones with ordinary guns) use visible projectiles that you can weave around. As a result, combat is entirely a challenge of your ability to dodge and aim, not complicating itself with problems like "react to this enemy instantly or take damage because he's hitscan" or "hope you're ready to fight against a random recoil pattern whenever you shoot" that so many other classic shooters dip into to at least a small degree.


Dusk brings its own flavor to the typical retro-FPS arsenal, both through cool original weapon designs and some unique takes on genre-staple weapon types. The riveter is this game's equivalent for a rocket launcher, but packs a rapid RoF and fast projectile speed that are in stark contrast to what's typical for the genre, and as a result it acts as the game's power weapon in much the same way as Doom's BFG or Quake's Thunderbolt, while the mortar brings a neat spin to a typical grenade launcher by letting you manually detonate if your shot misses. On the more original design side, you can find an energy crossbow whose shots pierce enemies and geometry, and a sword can be charged for a heavy-hitting stab if you have overhealth, and can block oncoming projectiles for reduced damage if you have enough armor, and I absolutely love it because it's probably one of the only times I've seen a melee weapon in an arena shooter that's still viable against stronger enemy types. These are packed in alongside standard stuff like a machine gun and regular/super shotguns, giving you plenty of fun options for how you deal with enemies.

Enemy variety is likewise impressive, though regrettably a decent chunk of the roster ends up underused. You have stuff like troopers, cultists, and flying apparitions that fill roles analogous to the likes of Doom's zombies, imps, and cacodemons, as well as some more niche stuff like a flying ball of bone that sprays skulls in every direction as it careens around the battlefield, and a whole host of melee-based enemies with various abilities, such as invisibility until you hit them or a high-speed charge attack. By far the roster's strongest point is its bosses, an element that has historically been a bit lacking in even some of the genre's best titles. On top of some fantastic end-episode fights that utilize really cool designs, each Ep has multiple mid-bosses; a few are used to introduce new enemy types via an ultra-beefed-up version of them, and others are totally unique fights like the end bosses, all of which offer a fun extra challenge, and overall they help to significantly make up for how the regular encounters falter.

Though the roster has some really solid potential, it ends up coming off as a bit flat due to how episodes theme themselves around select chunks of it. Whereas Doom and Quake both introduce most of their enemies by the end of their first 10-level episode, continuing to use them in ever more intense and dangerous encounters as time goes on, in Dusk you won't be encountering some of its coolest enemies until the -last six levels- (of 33, for reference), and by then a number of other types will have totally ceased appearing. Literally all of its flying enemies only appear in Ep 3, with most of the tough enemy types that are akin to stuff like Quake's Shamblers or Vores not showing up until midway into Ep 2, and even then a good chunk of them aren't re-used often, with a number of cool enemies like the shotgun-wielding scarecrows or magic-tossing witches practically ceasing to appear past the end of Ep 1. I do get that it's cool to have a progression in enemy types that matches the narrative, but in using this method the game misses out on a lot of potential for more creative encounters, and I certainly hope that future content updates or custom maps make a stronger use of the roster.


Dusk's balance has a fine-tuned curve to it, never overwhelming you with excessive numbers or cheap enemy placement, with most levels using a classic monster closet system instead of Serious Sam-style spawn-in that works really well for striking a balance between predictable and unexpected. Ammo is given to you at a steady rate that ensures you'll be ready to tackle each fight, while health and armor are kept a good deal more scarce to prevent any ideation of face-tanking, with cleverly-hidden secrets awarding you with caches of both to give you the leeway to take some extra hits or go hog-wild with your favorite gun.

Both you and your foes have -very- fast TTKs for the genre, especially when you take into account the ludicrously high DPS of your stronger weapons, with all but a select few enemy types taking at most a second or two to kill. This lends the game a much faster pace than you'd expect for an already speedy genre, as you no longer have to worry about strafing circles around a tough enemy to whittle them down, but -do- need to bear in mind that you'll bite the dust if more than 3 or so shots hit you, and this intense in-the-moment tone really helps set it apart from the titles it pulls so much inspiration from.


Dusk could easily rise up as the poster child for the modern retro shooter, recreating the look, feel, and style of the genre so well that if you told an uninformed Boomer that it came out back in '98 and they just missed it there's a solid chance they'd believe you. It brings in enough new ideas and changes to convention that it stands out from the greats of the genre, and if you've been in the mood for a new game that captures the spirit of the classics then you'll definitely want to play it ASAP.

9.1/10

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A lot of the negative reviews claiming this game is "grindy" or "pay-to-win" are from people who quite literally do not understand how the game's unlock & progression mechanics work, so here's a quick TLDR on very important aspects of said progression:
1. YOU CAN SELL YOUR GUN FOR A -100%- REFUND OF THE CURRENCY YOU USED TO UNLOCK IT.
2. THIS REFUND INCLUDES THE PRICE OF ANY UPGRADES YOU APPLIED TO THE GUN.
3. IT -ALSO- INCLUDES THE PRICE OF ANY ATTACHMENTS LIKE SCOPES, YOU JUST HAVE TO SELL THE ATTACHMENTS MANUALLY BEFORE YOU SELL THE GUN.
4. YOU GET A CURRENCY BONUS FOR USING A GUN FOR THE FIRST TIME (specifically, you have to complete 1 set with it)
5. THIS CURRENCY BONUS SCALES UPWARDS BASED ON THE PRICE OF THE GUN

If you can put two-and-two together, you can -probably- understand the intended "early game" gameplay loop those 5 points above feed into, but I'll explain that too just in case:
STEP 1: BUY GUN
STEP 2: RUN ONE SET WITH THE GUN, GET FIRST-SET CURRENCY BONUS
step 2.5: -very occasionally- run a second or third set with the gun (each gun can be used on at least 3 unique sets, so even when this happens you still don't need to re-run the same sets with the same gun!)
STEP 3: SELL GUN
STEP 4: BUY NEXT GUN
STEP 5: REPEAT STEPS 2-4 UNTIL YOU'VE GOTTEN THE FIRST-SET BONUS FOR EVERY GUN

The people who are making complaints like "I had to replay the same course with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Makarov -dozens- of times to finally be able to afford the next gun!" failed to understand those 5 easy steps.
Namely, instead of running through each gun once (at worst 2-3 times) to get an -asston- of first-set bonuses to use as a "baseline currency pool" on whichever gun ended up being their favorite, those people have instead been spending all of their currency upgrading that starter Makarov, re-running Pistols 1-1 with it ad nauseam to max it out, then finally only buying their next gun when they have further currency -on top of- what they've dumped in the Makarov, WITHOUT SELLING THE DAMN MAKAROV FIRST.
Those silly-willys then come here to complain that it takes "forever" to get enough money for the next gun WHEN THEY'VE ALREADY HAD THAT MONEY FOR HOURS, SITTING INSIDE OF THEIR READY-TO-BE-SOLD-RIGHT-THE-HECK-NOW MAKAROV.

You see my 23.3 hours of playtime? I have -every- gun unlocked, and I've had them all unlocked since around the 15-hour mark. Probably even earlier, some of that playtime was definitely me alt-tabbed looking at memes, grabbing snacks, or some other myriad distractions artificially inflating my hour count.
Mind you, I don't have them all unlocked -at the same time-, but all I have to do to bring whichever gun I want to a stage is to sell the gun I was using previously. Either way, ~15 hours to unlock 100% of the core content isn't exactly "grindy" by any stretch of the imagination, -especially- for a F2P game. I and likely most of you reading have paid much more for multiplayer/leaderboard-oriented games that -still- take longer than that to unlock all of their core loadout options despite being paid products.

Read the 5 mechanics. Read the 5 (and a half) steps. Don't be another one of those people who are (in a rare case where this phrase is -actually- correct rather than snobby elitism) quite literally playing the game wrong, and so suffering through a "grind" that stems entirely from their own incompetency.




In all seriousness though, half of this conundrum is admittedly the dev's fault (the "sell your crap for a full refund" and "use every gun once to get an initial 'bank' of currency built up" mechanics honestly aren't explained as best as they could be in-game), but the other half is deadass just people not taking the all-of-one-minute of menu-fiddling it took me to notice that selling guns lets you try new guns 100x faster.


Anyways, the game is solid. Not perfect (in particular, physics-based moving targets have hit registration issues), but if you want some competition-style target shooting with plenty of guns to choose from then it's (at least as far as games I'm personally aware of) probably the best option out there, -especially- since it's free & still has a very generous progression rate in spite of that lack of price tag.
8.2/10 probably, idk I don't feel like crunching the numbers definitively while it's still Early Access.


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