The retro-glitchterror genre, as I’ve christened it, continues to expand with Devil Daggers, a first-person shooter (of sorts) set in what seems to be an infinite darkness filled with creatures right out of our nightmares. You know the ones, where just looking at them gives you the shakes? It’s got a custom engine that renders everything like it’s straight out of the 90s and a deep movement system for avoiding death as long as possible again an infinite horde. In development for a while with gifs and trailers the only information available, it now has a Steam page and a release date: February 18th.
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It really has to be seen and heard to be understood, looking far more nightmarish in motion:
If you reached into my subconcious and pulled out something I wanted to play and all my illogical fears, then smashed them together, I expect it would look like the above. A fast paced, movement-heavy FPS combined with total darkness and on-rushing enemies that strike a balance between mutation of the familiar and the creepiness of the unknown.
The Steam page has some more info about how it will actually play. It is essentially wave survival, with your titular weapon upgrading as you go and providing you with more options. With no price tag it’s difficult to judge exactly how deep it is, but I’d be happy whether it turns out to have progression systems and alternate levels or is more singular. There’s certainly a competitive leaderboard element to it, with auto-uploaded replays so you can watch friends and rivals compete against the same challenges.
There’s precious few other details out there, even on the official site, which is mostly collections of equally disturbing footage. Here’s the best one, titled simply ‘Spiders’:
Hooray. Can’t wait to get up close and personal with those.