A whole lot of PC indie gaming seems to boil down to “if the big dogs stop making the kind of game I like, then I guess I’ll just do it myself.” My favorite result of this impulse is the thriving “boomer shooter” scene, with gutsy solo developers or small teams remixing old favorites and putting a whole new spin on the timeless concept of “angry slippery man with a gun unleashed in a maze full of enemies.”
Angry slippery man with a gun let loose in a maze full of enemies
I’ve rounded up some of my favorite retro indie shooters from the past year, as well as continuations of old favorites and some tips for getting started with source ports of classic FPSs.
Cultic (opens in new tab)
Image 1 from 4
Jasozz Games, $9.99 on Steam
This debut from Jasozz Games was the perfect Halloween treat, but the excellent level design and crunchy shots are welcome all year round. Cultic is most similar to Monolith’s 1997 classic Blood, but I also detect a lot of Resident Evil 4’s DNA here in the more grounded weapon selection, fall color palette, and some of its encounter designs.
There were scenes where I was clearing a village house by house or cutting boys off rickety bridges over a ravine that made me think I was in Spai – I mean, a ‘lonely and rural part of Europe’. Cultic is also a real bargain, at $10 for a ~six hour first episode that already feels like a full campaign, not to mention the promise of more on the way.
Dreamwild (opens in new tab)
Image 1 from 4
Fading Club, $7.99 on Steam
Dreamwild has one of my favorite art styles of all the games I’ve played this year. The point-and-click adventure sections resemble the best of the best of those surreal, dreamy render packs from the ’90s, while the horde mode arenas translate that look into a crunchy, software-rendered Quake-era look .
I also found Dreamwild to be surprisingly emotionally gripping, with a well-sketched supporting cast and confusingly good soundtrack (think low-fi synth beats to ramble through the psychic garbage.) This solo-developed gem will only set you back $8 ($6.39). until January 5.)
Image 1 from 4
David Szymanski, $4.99 on Steam
Pure arcade shooter bliss. Chop Goblins is the latest creation from Dusk developer David Szymanski, building on Dusk’s anarchic sense of humor, featuring the titular lovable bastards who invade all time and space. It has five levels ranging from a Greek temple to Dracula’s castle and an advertised runtime of half an hour, but thanks to a combo scoring system with a global leaderboard and plenty of boomer shooter level secrets, Chop Goblins offers plenty of replayability.
This game also has one of the best fast melees I’ve ever seen in an FPS, seriously. You get a knife stab that feels as brutal and crude as the rest of the game, and it’s spammable in the same way classic FPS melee weapons like Gordon’s crowbar or the Doomguy’s punch. You can also hold it up while reloading, making it eminently useful for holding the pain while you take another shot for your flintlock pistol.
Prodeus (opens in new tab)
Image 1 from 4
Bounding Box software, $24.99 on Steam and GOG (opens in new tab)
Basically, imagine a high-quality classic FPS campaign with sprite-based enemies and weapons, but also packed with as many normal maps and Xbox 360-era particle effects as possible. It reminds me a lot of the Xbox Live remasters of the Marathon trilogy, but much better executed and with a purposeful ending.
Prodeus almost feels like a playful de-make of Doom Eternal aesthetically, but it has a more wholly traditional design sensibility than the Doom remakes’ series of discrete arenas. The shooting and exploration is very well executed, but the visual spectacle alone is worth checking out. Prodeus also comes with a robust map editor, an entry point into its own modding ecosystem.
Act Two: Hrot (opens in new tab)Turbo overkill (opens in new tab)and ultrakill (opens in new tab)
Image 1 from 3
Three of my favorite shooters got early access this year, with more coming in 2023. Hrot, the beige-brown FPS set in Soviet Czechoslovakia, got a knockout second installment featuring gothic castles and a dark, pagan country. Ultrakill’s second act saw the addition of layers of Wrath and Heresy alongside awesome new bosses, while cyberpunk chainsaw shooter Turbo Overkill now has a sick grappling hook thanks to episode two. All three of these running FPS usually go for $20 on Steam.
What the heck is a source port anyway?
I’m glad you asked. This fan-made reverse-engineering of classic shooters allows for modern quality-of-life additions such as mouse look and high-resolution rendering, as well as easier creation and deployment of user-created content. The Doom modding scene is the granddaddy of them all, centered around excellent source ports like ZDoom (opens in new tab)and you can watch Doomworld’s 2022 Cacowards (opens in new tab) to find this year’s best new campaigns and levels.
The classic Star Wars shooter Dark Forces just got its own full source port for the first time thanks to the Force Engine (opens in new tab)and Bungie’s classic FPS trilogy Marathon has been completely free and open source for years thanks to Aleph One (opens in new tab) (be sure to check out the excellent recent total conversion, Apotheosis X (opens in new tab)).
You’ll still need files from a retail copy of Doom of Dark Forces, but once you’ve done that, running the classic campaign or creating a fan is a breeze. The Force Engine automatically detects your Dark Forces installation folder, while GZDoom (the most recent edition of ZDoom) only needs to have a copy of the retail game’s master WAD in its folder to run properly.
