#Prodeus kickstarter series

One highlight is 'Hazard', which takes place in a yawning canyon containing a lake of toxic sludge. This two-part level is the point at which Prodeus reveals its hand, with subsequent maps all revolving around a particular concept or mechanic. The early levels, for example, see you following a monorail through various facilities on the game's beleaguered asteroid, until you come to the epicentre of the war between order and chaos, descending into a vast crater to the fortress at its nadir. The effect is that you passively intuit the function of these locations as you violently redecorate them.

In its map design, Prodeus splits the difference between the abstracted labyrinths of Doom and the more logically coherent spaces of Half-Life, shifting seamlessly between the two in dreamlike fashion. That personality emerges once Prodeus has reacquainted you with the basics, delivering increasingly intense encounters in increasingly creative levels. Levels are busy with enemies from the off, and become incredibly intense by the end. Combined with the deeply brown appearance of Prodeus' opening levels, and it initially doesn't appear to have much of a personality beyond its hybrid visual style and lashings of gore. Most of the foes you face are thinly disguised variants of Doom's demonic adversaries, with legally distinct versions of imps, pinkies and cacodemons referencing Prodeus lineage. Its weirdest weapon is a late-game twist on Unreal Tournament's Biorifle that isn't much fun to wield, and there's some of that same conservatism in much of its enemy roster.

The highlights though, are the chaingun and plasma rifle, both of which are perfect for shredding through the hordes of foes Prodeus throws at you.Īlthough well designed, there's nothing especially radical within Prodeus' weaponry. Other weapons include a rocket launcher with a delightful pump-action reload, and a lightning-rifle with a railgun alt-fire that cracks like thunder. The shotgun has clearly been iterated upon obsessively, with a bassy default fire that never fails to satisfy. Beneath the gristle Prodeus understands this too, combining smooth, speedy player movement with an arsenal of reliably punchy weapons. Levels blend abstract arenas and mazes with more architecturally coherent spaces like this.īut as Nintendo demonstrated, a shooter doesn't need to be violent to be satisfying. None of which is to mention how it sounds - I've never heard a sprite squelch quite the way I have in Prodeus. In more crowded scenes Prodeus turns into an X-Rated version of Splatoon, with your weapons coating entire rooms in internal fluids of various colours. Fire your shotgun into the chest of a zombie grunt and their torso will disintegrate like service station toilet paper, splattering surrounding terrain in near-comical amounts of blood. Glisten is the optimal word for describing Prodeus' gibbage - the violence here is striking, and stylishly over-the-top. When you fire a rocket or shoot an explosive barrel, the resulting blast will illuminate the scene in a fiery orange glow, while environmental light sources glisten off gunmetal corridors and rain-slicked terrain. Terrain and environments are rendered in angular 3D, while objects and enemies are presented as chunky sprites (although there's an option to swap them for 3D models too). Prodeus' amalgamated personality is evident in its visual style, which mimics the 2.5D graphics of early id-tech and Build engine games then infuses it with modern lighting and visual effects.

#Prodeus kickstarter series

Availability: Out now for PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X, coming 7th October to Nintendo Switch.From your perspective, both sides are equally in your way, and will die by the hundreds, if not thousands, as you carve a path across the surface of the asteroid and beyond. You're an archetypal space marine trapped on a barren but mineral rich asteroid, where a cataclysm has resulted in an all-out war between two interdimensional factions – one representing order, and the other chaos. This is an anachronistic high-wire act, synthesising old and new ideas in a way that is always exciting, occasionally inspired, and defies easy categorisation.Įven the base premise is wilfully elusive, although this is well in the spirit of the genre's foundational texts. But none walk that line as precisely as Bounding Box Software's Prodeus. Bounding Box delivers an anachronistic high-wire act, and the perhaps the best shooter outright since Doom Eternal.Įvery retro shooter straddles the line between classic and modern design, whether it's a new game built in an old engine like Ion Fury and Wrath, or a good old-fashioned murderfest that uses cutting edge tech like Amid Evil.