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Dread Templar PC Review

I am always impressed with how indie developers have grown the retro throwback of video games over the years for people, like me, who are over the age of 30. We would never get such titles we have now from the large publishers, so it is wonderful that we get to see these smaller teams share their creations with us. Fans who enjoy playing good throwbacks are in the plenty, and for those who like the gaming of old and have the desire to create games that inspired them when they were kids and teenagers, then more power to them, as it makes for a great nostalgic feeling when I get round to playing their titles. I guess this scenario is how a lot of indie developers get their yearning to make video games. Dread Templar is the latest first-person shooter that is motivated by the action of the 90s to bring the fast-paced, hardcore, old-school feeling into 2023 with its release from Steam Early Access into a finished version 1.0 release. So how does this latest entry in the so-called “Boomer Shooter” category stack up against the others? Well, it’s certainly not a dreadful game by any means (I had the get that in there…sorry!), and it shows how even a solo developer can create something that does not need to be ground-breaking, just as long as it is a blast to play.

Setup is kept to the minimum, with the story beats presented with a single block of text voiced over with a piece of artwork behind it at the beginning of each act. The plot is that the protagonist, a dread templar, is out for revenge against terrifying monsters. These unholy beasts murdered the grandfather of the titular character when he was a kid. He saw the horrific death behind a door as he witnessed his grandpa get slaughtered right in front of him. Coming out when it was safe, the kid meets a mysterious person in a black robe that offers him the chance to make him a nightmare for the monsters by becoming a dread templar, a person with the power to command the dread force and head into the demons’ home of the dark realm. In other words, it sets the backstory and the reason why you are kicking the living daylights out of all these demons with a variety of weaponry. That is good enough since not everything has to have a good story, especially when the game is trying to go for that 90s PC first-person shooter representation, as the action itself is what makes a title like this worth the time.

That action is what endorses those fast-paced shooters of the 90s, and it is all over Dread Templar’s DNA. Complicated maze-like levels, plenty of secrets stuffed within them, and different environmental themes across each level. All the stuff that made the 90s shooters fun is included here in various quantities. As soon as I began playing Dread Templar the one thing that was instantly noticeable compared to modern-day shooters is just how fast the movement is. This is brilliant for getting around, and the levels are created around this movement speed to make sure they do not give off a feeling that they are small in scale. There are additional tools to go along with the movement, such as a jump, but other abilities are limited in use due to a cooldown. These are a dash, which charges up over time, and the ability to slow down time, which can be used if there is metre in the bar. This ability charges up based on kills, making it more limited in availability compared to the other abilities. Everything around the game’s movement feels fluid and easy to control, and aiming is as reactive as your ability to move a mouse. Aiming is very twitchy, making it accurate to pinpoint shots against the multitude of demons.

These demons come in a few shapes and sizes, but never in massive volumes in the vein of games like Serious Sam, so it never gets to the point where it feels like it is testing your ability at wave survival. That said, there are some scenarios in the level design situated in big open areas that have a mixture of melee and long-range demons that require attention to detail to keep yourself out of harm’s way. The AI of these demons is basic. They seem to track the player, but not well around the environment, as at multiple times during the game’s 8-hour playthrough on the standard difficulty I had enemies perform their running animation stuck on the corners of stairs or fences and could not get themselves around it unless I moved myself to an angle where the route was clear. I must celebrate the demons’ dedication, almost like a hamster in a wheel trying to get to the end of the path, as these foes are programmed with the most basic of attributes; they just want to get to you and kill you.

Dread Templar has a nice selection of weapons to take the fight back to the demons. First, though, are the dual katanas, a last resort if ammo is depleted, which comes with its own nice alt ability to combine the two swords together to make a javelin and throw it at the enemy for big damage. This has a cooldown, so cannot be abused. The Bow is another weapon that has a cooldown, replacing an arrow with each charge. The bow can be strong when fully stretched, but it never feels like a key weapon, as it is so easy to get through the small ammo supply and be stuck waiting for a recharge. Apart from the mentioned katanas, weapons do not normally have an alt-fire, as pressing that button will switch to the other weapon that occupies the same slot based on the sharing the same ammo, such as the dual pistols and dual SMGs or the Shotgun and Double-Barrelled Shotgun. Other weapons include a grenade launcher, rocket launchers, a special demon magnum and a demon gauntlet, which is in essence this game’s version of a BFG 9000…I guess you could call it a Big Fucking Gauntlet? In the end, all that matters is that Dread Templar makes it enjoyable to shoot demons. While enemies can be bullet sponges at times, pumping 40 bullets from an SMG into some schmuck demon and watching it explode into a bloody mess is satisfying.

A neat feature to modernise this retro shooter is the upgrade system. Each level has red stones and modifier tokens. Spending the red stones unlocks slots that can be fitted with a modifier, with each weapon having the ability to store 2 standard modifiers and a rare modifier. These range from basic upgrades (increased damage, more ammo, faster reloading), to more exciting modifications, such as making the pump action shotgun into an ice shotgun, which causes slowdown to enemy movement, or turning the SMGs into mini hellfire miniguns to chew through demons. The default selection is a solid selection of weapons, but the variety is made even better with these enhancements.

It is a shame that the enemy selection does not follow the same pattern, as the game does sometimes apply pallet swaps. That said, the design does throw in some cool tricks. There are these fat monsters that create smoke and hide within it while attacking, and there are some large purple demons that throw artillery bombardments at you. It ends up being that their tougher versions are then pallet swapped. The small spiders in the first few levels behave the same as the ice beetles in the latter levels. The standard zombie unit becomes harder in its golden form, but it is still the same enemy with the same behaviours. Speaking of those tiny critters, one thing that can be a little unforgiving is how the game communicates damage, with grunts and slow movement the trigger to register a hit. The slow movement is frustrating, as sometimes there are small corridors with enemies surrounding you and the best bet is to get out into a more open area, but getting hit can mean the end as the reduced movement speed enables them to get more hits in. It is not always clear where the hit has come from, which can lead to a few cheap deaths.

Quake seems to be the visual inspiration for this game. Dread Templar has a pixellated look on its textures for everything, weapons, items, walls, and monsters, to give it that early 3d polygon presentation. Even the colour scheme is similar with the light browns making up most, but that soon changes as the environment becomes wilder further into the episodes, using bright lighting to spice up the atmosphere. Due to its low polygon design, Dread Templar can run pretty much on any budget gaming PC. Even the Steam Deck runs it well, meaning the demon-hunting action can be taken on the go to continue the campaign or take some breaks and head into the Guardian Mode, a wave-based gamemode that requires defending a crystal from incoming enemies.

There are so many of these 90s-inspired shooters that anyone who is a fan is having a field day with all the options available. Dread Templar becomes another solid entry in this subgenre. It offers a nice mixture of retro gameplay along with some more modern ideas with its skill tree and weapon modification concept. Dread Templar is a fast, fun, twitchy shooter that enjoys promoting the old through great-level design, hectic gameplay, pixellated visuals, and its groovy metal soundtrack. Dread Templar is a competent first-person shooter offering made for a certain audience, and I think the developer is happy with delivering a good retro-feeling shooter for those people to add to their video game collection.

7 out of 10