Old-school shooter Dusk blasts into Early Access

Dusk isn't shy about its inspirations, taking elements of Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Hexen, and Redneck Rampage and mashing them together into a bloody pulp. But as Norm discovered when he played an early version last year, it's more than just a retro throwback, with dense, elaborate level design and modern environmental storytelling. Now you can try it out for yourself, because it's just launched on Steam Early Access.

The Early Access version throws you into the first two episodes of a three-episode campaign about killing cultists, as well as a beta version of the game's arena-style multiplayer (expect a few bugs). The two episodes are "practically finished", and the third one is nearly there—when it's ready the game will release properly.

The shooting is largely what you'd expect from a retro, '90s-inspired FPS, with quick strafing, bunny-hopping, and powerful guns. But it throws in its own ideas: you can do front flips off of jump pads, and if you mash R you'll start a stylish reload animation, despite the fact that you don't actually need to reload.

The final version of Dusk, which will be ready in the "next few months", will also contain an Endless mode, where you cut through wave after wave of enemies in a choice of three arenas. Steam reviews, for what it's worth, are very positive, with players praising the slick movement and punchy weapons.

If you want a slice of the action, it's £15/$20.

Thanks, RPS.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.