Dusk

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Dusk is a First-Person Shooter released on PC in 2018 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021. This is a retro-style game that harkens back to the early days of the genre (compare to games like Quake), with simple gameplay and a focus on fast-paced action.

Given its old-school sensibilities, it is perhaps fitting that Dusk also aims for a decidedly old-school presentation. That means low-detail, low-poly environments with low-poly characters and very minimal visual effects. At the very least, the game manages to pull off an unflinching 60FPS framerate with a resolution of 1080p in docked mode and 720p in handheld mode. In other words, this is not at all a visually-impressive game, but it performs flawlessly on Nintendo Switch, and these visuals are backed by a somewhat minimalist soundtrack that underscores the moody nature of the game’s creepy environments and enemies.

Dusk doesn’t waste any time with story – you’re apparently fighting members of some sort of strange cult (constantly greeting you with cries of “heretic!” and “kill the unbeliever!”) and the creepy monsters hanging out with them. Beyond the possible wink and nod toward a classic “Doom Clone” First-Person Shooter, this is little more than window-dressing over an excuse to shoot up a horde of ruthless enemies.

When it comes to that First-Person Shooter action, Dusk does a great job recreating the same sort of feel of those classic entries in the genre, slightly augmented by some of the modern conveniences of the genre – like the classics of the genre, you won’t need to worry about reloading, and you’ll be doing a fair amount of circle-strafing, but now you may find yourself jumping from cover to cover to avoid incoming fire, and making use of down-the-sights aiming.

If there’s one area where I think Dusk actually improves on the genre classics it imitates, I actually think it has some much better and more varied level design, with a good mix of wide-open spaces and claustrophobic corridors, and with lots of fun secrets nestled away in clever places throughout each area. I also appreciate that in addition to a standard campaign, Dusk includes an Endless mode, where players fight through wave after wave of enemies in an enclosed arena, trying to see how long they can last.

However, there are a few areas where Dusk falls short. In some of the game’s more labyrinthine corridors, its lack of any sort of map can make it confusing to keep track of where you are. And perhaps most disappointing here is the total absence of any sort of multiplayer, all the more disappointing because this feels like a game that is absolutely screaming for the ability to play in an online deathmatch.

At the very least, the Nintendo Switch version of the game sports some nice updates to the interface like a weapon wheel and full support for gyroscopic motion-controlled aiming that works quite well, and there are plenty of display options in the game’s menu to adjust the experience to your liking.

In the end, Dusk manages to do a great job hitting the exact target it’s aiming for, creating a classic-style fast-paced First-Person Shooter experience that channels the best of the old-school entries in the genre while adding in just enough modernized elements to make it not seem like a wholly archaic experience on modern platforms. It still feels like it could have just a few more features, and it misses out on a huge opportunity by not including any sort of multiplayer play, but overall this is an excellent entry in the genre.

tl;dr – Dusk is a First-Person Shooter that channels the spirit of classic games in the genre, and does so largely successfully, pairing those classic games’ fast-paced focus on action with some small nods to more modern sensibilities. It’s still missing a few features, most notably a complete lack of multiplayer, but this is nevertheless a superb take on the genre’s golden age, and well worth playing for genre fans.

Grade: B

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