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Influenced the glowing opinion as told by Lepcis, I too decided to pick up Dusk and give it a shot. While I am by no means a master of the old DOOM/Quake-esque FPS genre, I’ve played and finished too many to recollect easily. Hexen and Hexen II are probably my favs and I have the unpopular opinion that Quake really isn’t any good (please don’t hurt me Quake fans). Regardless, I’ve been around the block enough times to become tired of the old-school FPS concept, and so it generally takes a lot to impress me when it comes to this kind of game.
Dusk, by all accounts succeeds at being a true-to-source Quake-clone. It has its own spin related to cultic weirdness and Cthulhu monstrosity, but just like the games it’s trying to emulate, the specifics don’t matter. There are enemies, and you shoot them; not many questions need asked.
The first chapter and-a-half are rather tame though and I was somewhat non-plused by the experience until almost the exact half-way point of chapter 2 (as per DOOM rules, there are 3 chapters). From there, the developers really have some fun and let loose with some impressive level designs, especially one called the Erebus Reactor, which is just a massive power-plant-like level that is extremely open, right from the beginning.
Mechanically speaking, the weapons are near-carbon copies of its predecessors’ (right down to the hotkey numbers being exactly the same) and aside from a few quality of life changes (like being able to detonate launched grenades manually) there’s nothing amazing about the gunplay. Most enemies, while unique from an asthetic sense, are also completely re-used concepts from previous DOOM/Quake games. The only enemy that truly stood out was the Wendigo–which is an impressive design. Unlike the invisible Pinkies from DOOM (who were more translucent than transparent), Wendigos are truly invisible, save for the bloody footprints they leave on the ground. This made for an exciting, challenging and new enemy that I appreciated.
It’s worth noting as well, that the music is truly amazing and gives the game a life that it would not have without it.
While I did not regret the experience and have nothing to bad to say about the title (heck, it was much better than Quake), I only rate it at Tier 2 simply due to a lack of unique concepts. If you are an old-school FPS fan, then this game will be like candy to you. It’s everything you loved about the old Quake-like games, only smoother, faster and with a lot of QoL tweaks to take out the past annoyances of controlling your character. For me though, I want my games to try more new things and be a bit more bold and take more risks when it comes to design.