Yesterday’s PC Gaming Show was a celebration of the old and the new for the PC platform. For a few of the games on the show, it was clearly going for a mix of both.
One example of a new game that strikes a very 90s tone is Prodeus, an unapologetic old school shooter in all its pixelated glory. The radical trailer showed all types of gun-play action developed by Bounding Box Software and published by Humble Games.
Prodeus started as a Kickstarter campaign that was successfully funded last year. An early access launch is planned for a fall 2020 period. Hopefully the full release isn’t too far off from the this early launch and doesn’t take as long as games like Skater XL which is only just hitting version 1.0 next month.
Within the indie gaming space on PC is a new trend of the nostalgia act on the early 3D shooters of the platform in the vein of Quake and Doom. Prodeus, more than others based on the trailer, looks to combine the two. Prodeus has that sprite based Doom look, but takes that style and blends it into a 3D space. Even the movements on enemies seem slightly more static creating something that definitely looks new, despite evoking old styles. Small snippets from the trailer confirm that the old tropes of key cards and power ups will come into play.
Beyond the gameplay of chaotic demon shooting, Prodeus is offering players the tools to construct their own levels of mayhem. The trailer notes that those looking for more can create, share and browse through levels by the community providing content beyond the campaign.
That distinguishing look is important for a game like Prodeus as it enters the market during a rise of Old School shooter revivals. The PC Gaming Show had an solid mix of genre but the revival of the early first-person shooter took up a sizable spot. Many of these came from the New Blood Games showcase that displayed a heap of inspired early shooters like Maximum Evil, Amp Evil, and Gloomwood. This trend can be traced back to the initial release of Dusk in 2017.
It wasn’t only the early first-person shooter tributes to take the spotlight at the presentation. One of the biggest reveals was a port of the immensely popular Persona 4 Golden, a game that many feared was trapped on Sony’s handheld the PlayStation Vita. While the news was welcomed, it was not surprising considering the early indications it would make its debut at the show.
Prodeus is set to release in Early Access this fall.