Reviews
[Review] ‘DUSK’ Evokes the Spirit of Classic Shooters, But is So Much More Than That
It’s time to practice that bunny-hop and strafe so you can slay a legion of evil cultists in this ingenious throwback to the lightning-paced shooters of yesteryear. Read our DUSK review to see why it’s one of the best games of 2018.
This past week saw the 25th anniversary of DOOM, perhaps the most important shooter of all time. So it’s almost as ballsy as it is timely that New Blood Interactive released a game that is a celebration of that era of shooters at heart. This is no desperate attempt to cash in on an established name though, because DUSK is so much more than a simple throwback. It’s a pulsating blast ’em up in its own right.
From the 90’s 3D visuals to the chugging metal soundtrack, at a glance, DUSK looks and sounds very much like it could have been part of that Golden Age of PC shooters that saw Doom Guy and Duke Nukem become genre icons. There’s no auto-healing, you begin the game practically defenseless, and you move at a blistering pace. To play just a portion of its opening level it even feels like a trip back in time. If you had to place it, DUSK could be the missing link between DOOM‘s speedy corridor-shooting, and the Gothic openness of Quake. As you delve deeper into DUSK, you will discover that it has a few tricks from beyond that era too.
The plot is secondary here, but it does at least accommodate the set dressing. It involves a satanic cult of sorts and sees you pitted against everything from bag-headed, chainsaw-wielding maniacs to invisible goat demons as you take in a surprisingly varied amount of scenery. Despite the lightness of a blatant narrative, there’s still an impressive amount of environmental storytelling that gives you an indication of what to do and what may be coming.
The environmental storytelling is unquestionably helped by some cracking level design that only improves as DUSK goes on. There’s a pleasing mixture of wide open arenas and winding corridors to each stage and while there’s a measure of backtracking and key-grabbing to be had, the design ensures that it takes on a modern Souls-esque pattern of looping back round to your starting point instead of simply trudging back the way you came.
Along the way, you’ll be doing plenty of shooting of course, and DUSK‘s shooting is pretty damn satisfying, to say the least. The speed at which DUSK plays is shown to be necessary as the enemies can materialize from anywhere and often in great numbers. What follows is a hi-octane dance of death, where you dodge and weave through a hail of gunfire, picking off each individual threat with its corresponding weapon (it’s phenomenal how naturally you end up switching between weapons for each situation).
What initially seems like an intimidating one versus many contest turns into an almost strategic evisceration of the enemy, as you corral swarms of nasties into the path of something explosive to gain a high bullet to death ratio. It’s simply sublime to experience. It’s an exhilarating reminder of how intense shooters can be, and proof that photorealistic/stylish visuals aren’t a necessity to make that happen. DUSK runs butter-smooth too, so the action rarely suffers for iffy framerate.
That gunplay lesson the game gives you in the early stages really comes in handy later as the levels become more eccentric and wild. At one point you end up firing your way through a violent interpretation of an Escher painting and it’s as bonkers as it is effective. The opening chapter ends up feeling a tad ordinary by comparison as things get crazier and crazier up until a highly satisfying final boss encounter that acts as a fine payoff for the deliciously hellish six or seven hours you’ve gone through.
If there’s anything close to a downside then it’s clearly the multiplayer mode. It’s not to say that it’s anything terrible. While the main game is a grisly tour-de-force fusion of old and new, the multiplayer is almost completely a throwback with little in the way of a modern flourish to it. It’s functional, enjoyable, and sadly that’s all there is to it. It seems daft to suggest a competent yet unspectacular multiplayer offering sours a cracking single player campaign, but it does take the shine off ever so slightly.
What matters most is that DUSK is still a fantastic shooter despite this. It channels the twitchy, quick feeling of PC shooters of 20-odd years ago and somehow makes it play like it never went out of style by peppering in a few novel touches. In an age of photo-realistic visuals and painstakingly-modeled guns, DUSK is proof positive that good old-fashioned shooters can still be relevant and thrilling decades after their heyday. Especially when handled as efficiently as New Blood Interactive has managed.
DUSK review code for PC provided by the publisher.
DUSK is out now on Steam PC.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
You must be logged in to post a comment.