Regardless that the first-person shooter style has developed a lot, there’s all the time a gentle stream of video games aiming to emulate the texture of boomer shooter royalty like Doom, Quake, and Blood. I would argue a few of the finest FPS video games of latest years lean on the retro visible model, ludicrous weapons, and gliding motion of their ’90s forefathers. Nightfall is one such instance. A cult traditional from David Szymanski, it is a dirty and slick boomer shooter that feels just like the icons of a long time previous – proper up till the second you pull off a candy backflip. Now, it is getting a brand new spinoff referred to as Dungeons of Nightfall that fills within the gaps between its episodes. Nonetheless, it is completely not the type of sport I anticipated.
Should you had been to look at a screenshot of Dungeons of Nightfall, you might assume it is simply one other FPS – and to an extent, you are right. However in fact, it is a turn-based RPG. As a substitute of transferring round, aiming, and firing freely, you may need to strategically navigate a tiled dungeon crammed with enemies and pickups, fastidiously deciding on assaults as you go. In addition to well being and ammo counters such as you’d count on to see in any FPS, you have additionally acquired a morale meter and method factors to restrict what number of actions you may carry out in a given flip.
The brand new trailer additionally exhibits off a decently sized ability tree, and factors to a number of totally different sport modes you could play throughout 5 issue settings. There’s a 30-level marketing campaign, a survival mode with “permadeath and randomly generated dungeons,” an area mode, and a boss rush that chains collectively all of the marketing campaign’s hardest enemies.
As talked about, that is narratively positioned between the episodes of Nightfall and explores a buried world beneath the place the primary sport takes place. In addition to new enemy sorts and executives, you might stumble throughout acquainted faces too should you’re an present fan.
It is tremendous intriguing to see a retro FPS get reworked right into a turn-based sport, even when it does look a bit jarring. I see the aesthetics, and I instantly really feel like I ought to be zipping round and dodging enemies whereas blasting away to my coronary heart’s content material. As a substitute, it is all sharp, 90-degree turns and disciplined attacking. On the very least, the tempo nonetheless appears to be fairly quick – turns aren’t going to be mega drawn out, if the gameplay from the trailer is something to go by.
Similar to the boomer shooter it was born from, New Blood Interactive is publishing this one, however Szymanski is not making this spinoff. As a substitute, 68k Studios, a developer that focuses on grid-based RPGs, is on the helm – a logical alternative, taking a look at its portfolio. You possibly can wishlist the sport right here if it feels like your thought of a dream style mashup.
Dungeons of Nightfall has a broad 2026 launch window in the mean time, however I will be holding an in depth eye out for that particular date subsequent yr. Oh, and I would not fear about checking your specs on this one – in true Megabonk model, 68k has listed some humorous system necessities on its Steam web page. Do not consider me? “Something that activates” is the minimal really helpful processor…
