Now that October is here, I have had the perfect excuse to start shopping around for scary games, which is great because otherwise I would never play them (I hate scary games). After searching around on Steam, I dug up a game that I have been aware of for a while now.

DUSK

is a retro first-person shooter filled with cultists, crazy military scientists and, of course, lots and lots of killing. It stands tall at a 97% positive review rating on

Steam

and an 88% on

Metacritic

, and it was published by New Blood Interactive of

ULTRAKILL

and

Faith: The Unholy Trinity

fame. I played and loved

ULTRAKILL

and figured any shooter pushed by them is at least worth some of my time. The developer, David Szymanski, got his start making short horror games (

Iron Lung

is probably his best-known project; it is currently being adapted into a movie), so the game was bound to have some good scares along with it. I bit the bullet and opted to see what

DUSK

had to offer.

Despite its flaws,

DUSK

is a solid game that can be a lot of fun when it is best. The gunplay feels great: the weapons carry a weight to them and they all feel good to shoot; ammo is sparse for some weapons but not punishingly so and the dual-wielding mechanics are always satisfying. Seeing the little shotgun-twirling reload animation is a unique feature. Unfortunately,

DUSK

suffers from some arsenal bloating. All in all, there are about a dozen weapons, of which you will have access to eight or nine at a time. A lot of weapons are redundant, especially the riveter and mortar; the latter is much more awkward to use, while the former has incredibly sparse ammo but feels great in comparison. Condensing them into one could remove some unnecessary extra weaponry that slows the player down from trying to pick the weapon they had in mind.

ULTRAKILL

, by comparison, only has five weapons, but gives each of them separate variations to choose from. By adding a second axis of customization,

ULTRAKILL

limits the amount of scrolling players have to do while trying to select their ideal weapon, whereas in

DUSK

I find myself running around trying to select the shotguns for a few seconds during combat.

The game’s weakest aspect are easily its boss fights. They are, to put it in a word, bad. The Duke Brothers are two big guys that occasionally fire homing projectiles at you. The Experiments run around and will sometimes stand still to shoot a series of projectiles. None of the designs are inspired, either visually or mechanically, and all of them thus far have been upsettingly easy. The hardest boss I have fought so far, Big John, would theoretically be a challenge, but his arena is a massive, open space. His gun has so much spread, and he moves so slowly that you just need to stand far away and snipe him to death. Not what I would call engaging gameplay.

The first episode suffers from a lot of problems in particular. The environments feel repetitive, the enemies mostly feel like unchallenging bullet sponges, and the encounters are largely easy. I was starting to worry a little about the game’s quality, and there are certainly concerns to be had, but so far the second episode has really ramped it up. Encounters are difficult! Nothing too absurd yet (I still have a couple levels to go), but they require some thought. Enemies are more challenging, but do not always feel like they are just tanking every bullet like a champ, which makes the basic pistol actually viable in a lot of scenarios.

The level designs are also really cool; the military base setting has a lot of interesting variety, compared to doing four farmhouse levels in a row. The boss fights are still disappointing, regrettably, but the game does have some time to turn that around. It also added probably the best powerup in the game, a SUPERHOT-style “time only moves when you do” ability that feels really cool but that I have only seen twice; I am glad they are not overdoing it, but I feel a little bit led on.

By far the game’s best moments are the atmospheric ones. Szymanski’s background in short horror comes through here, even though the gameplay is still a little rough around the edges. There were a few moments where I have been actively creeped out, but I would not call it actively scary.

There is a lot to like about

DUSK

at the end of the day. It is not a perfect game, but I would be lying if I said it was not also very fun. Blasting cultists is always cathartic and doing it in 180p is not so bad either. Szymanski’s new FPS project,

Gloomwood

, is out in early access, and while I have not played it, I am hoping he has taken a few lessons from his first foray into the genre. I am only expecting the game to improve as I play more. I would recommend it if it looks like it might be for you; you will definitely get your money’s worth. That said,

ULTRAKILL

does everything this game does, and for the most part does it better.

DUSK

is not trying to reinvent the wheel — it is a tribute more than anything. I do not want to push for

ULTRAKILL

too hard, but it is really good.

Game over, gamers. Scarier games coming soon.