I love oldschool FPS’s, but somehow the whole boomer shooter resurgence just passed me by. I just finished Boltgun on the hardest difficulty and had a great time, would love to hear some other suggestions
There are a lot to sift through, but I recommend:
- Nightmare Reaper You play as a woman sent to an asylum and the battle is against the horrors within her head. It has tons of fun weapons, enemies, and challenges.
- AMID EVIL A magic themed FPS that reminds me a lot of Hexen/Hexic. It has a superb soundtrack.
- Forgive Me Father A horrific adventure to fight a cult and its otherworldly summonings. Has a perk progression system that sets it apart from most.
Nightmare Reaper is an absolute blast. I found it scrolling YouTube a year or so back and have enjoyed almost every minute with it.
I haven’t tried Amid Evil yet, just the VR edition. The VR version has been incredible so far.
If VR is of any interest Compound is another great game. It gets more into rogue-like territory but the Doom era inspirations are apparent immediately
Seconding Amid Evil, it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes I fire it up for a quick game. Cool weapons.
Both those look awesome! Dusk especially looks right up my alley, but I just bought both on Steam, will be starting with dusk tonight :)
It’s been a while since I played it, but Sauerbraten / Cube 2 had a very old-school FPS vibe to it. It’s open source, so just download and play.
Excellent suggestions all around in the comments! I own all of these XD There is one that wasn’t mentioned that I would highly recommend. Dread Templar is a good one.
DUSK and CULTIC come to mind. The original 1993 DOOM and 1996 Quake are also absolutely still worth playing, but it sounds like you may have already played them. Maybe Post Void, Cruelty Squad, or HROT if those seem up your alley.
I’ve heard great stuff about ULTRAKILL, but I would wait for it to leave early access before getting it.
As mentioned here, DUSK is GOATed I can personally attest to that.
ULTRAKILL i need to spend more time in, loved what i played but i haven’t had the time to perfect my play in it
Dread Templar was great fun, and a very smooth experience. It even has melee weapons that aren’t crap.
Wrath Aeon of Ruin was a mediocre experience for me. The shooting was fun, but there was a real lack of enemy diversity. I remember the checkpoints being funky somehow?
Og games like Quake, Doom and Unreal hold up really well. They can be modded to your hearts content too. Brutal Doom is just way too much fun
Blood is super fun, but unfairly difficult on the highest difficulty. It kicks your head in, until you learn, but every minute of the experience is fun. Until the maze-like levels and actual mazes make you dizzy.
Cultic is like a modern Blood, but an even more deliberate version. The demo is good fun and the game is cheap.
Poweslave Exhumed is something I remember enjoying as a kid. Iron Maiden themed romp through mummies. It kinda reminds me of…
Amid Evil and Hexen//Heretic. Both feature mystical weapons, mana for ammo and fantastical locations and monsters to kill. Amid Evil is a great shooter with survival modes, a full campaign and all Heretic and Hexen are older, more dated games that will hurt you. But I love them for it.
Dusk was rhe first new retro shooter I played, and it’s fun. It’s slick, has a nice deathmatch mode and the campaign doesn’t overstay its welcome. I hear it has been surpassed by Hrot.
Blood West tricked me hard. It’s not a boomer shooter, but more like a single player version of Hunt, or a wild-west monsterhunting Dishonoured? It’s fun and unforgiving, but not a boomer shooter, even if it has guns.
EYE Divine Cybermancy could qualify, I guess. It’s a trippy grimdark warhammer inspired rpg shooter. Very boomery in it’s visuam style and lack of handholding, but definitely more modern than Quake.
Black Mesa is Half-Life, and it’s good. Nuff said.
Haven’t played enough of Hedon, Project Warlock, Ion Maiden, Incision, Prodeus, Graven or Rise of the Triad to say more than they exist.
HROT is a great, stylized boomer shooter if you’ve got a kick for eastern Europe/Soviet-era architecture.
I’d throw Painkiller into the ring. I still think of “shurikens and lightning” whenever I think of it https://youtu.be/qk7DlYcQ0uM