Right, it’s boomer shooting time! There is a long list of retro-inspired games which feel as though they’ve been in development Hell for quite some time, With Gloomwood and Graven being on top of that list. But I like to think that the recent release of Dread Templar is a good sign and a new era of retro-inspired shooters finally making their emergence into the gaming space. But after waiting so long for a game like this to come out, can it live up to the hype surrounding it? I again like to think Dread Templar is a sign of things to come, a positive sign as this is a freaking awesome game, and I’ll tell you why!
What is Dread Templar?
Dread Templar is a 90’s inspired, action-filled, fast-paced first-person shooter that pits you into the boots of the Dread Templar, who is seeking revenge deep in the evil realm. Players will explore numerous levels, spanning across the evil realm, where they will shoot gruesome creatures of darkness, solve puzzles to find hidden weapons and upgrades and basically cause an immense amount of mayhem.
There is a variety of weapons which pack a punch, and the Dread Powers which you can customise immensely, allowing you to adapt your playstyle over the course of the game in a profoundly meaningful way. Whether you want a faster rate of fire for your shotgun or a quicker to reload time for your submachine pistols. The variation of swords from guns to swords allows players to mix and match their attacks and brutality.
Dread Templar combines classic and modern gameplay elements, incorporating visuals inspired by the great shooters of the 90s, with some of the perks and gameplay features of the modern era. Players can dash to avoid environmental dangers and enemy attacks, while bullet time to slows things down, allowing for extra damage or avoiding an overwhelming number of foes. There’s some nice customisation, where you may upgrade certain aspects of your skills and weapons, making you the ideal hunter in the evil realm.
Since this is the full 1.0 version of Dread Templar, to note the final inclusions from its early access counterpart include new weapons, new enemies, new Runes which are important to character progression and of course, the last two chapters bringing the package to 5 in total. We have new difficulties, a new game plus mode and a bunch of other minor tweaks and level design alterations to keep the action and pacing fast, fierce and brutality satisfying.
Lastly, there is a great new additional mode called “Guardian Mode” where players must protect a crystal in the middle of an arena against waves of enemies. It’s a fun mode, and while not wholly original it’s a solid addition and a great blast at that.
Story
Okay, since my preview last year there is now a fully fleshed-out narrative for Dread Templar, be it a simple yet engaging one. Our brutish hero sets out to realms unknown, filled with pure chaos and evil to rid himself of a family curse which has brought nothing but pain and suffering for generations.
It’s still quite vague and leaves much interpretation for the player, there are cut scenes dotted throughout the campaign that gives more context to a traumatic event in the Dread Templar’s childhood. These scenes have a great deal of gravitas and while the voice work is a little hammy, the writing is solid and the heightened mystery is more than enough to keep you invested until the bitter end. It’s a great take for the boomer shooter regeneration, as in the old days of gaming
Sleek, gruesome and dreadingly goodAs you have guessed already, Dread Templar is presented lovingly with 90’s aesthetics, dripping with macabre gothic vibes, all beautifully rendered with edgy polygons, and high detail. Looking at Dread Templar will simply evoke visions for the older gamer of Quake and Unreal, and that connection will certainly go further than skin deep.
I know we value very smooth, shiny, and detailed visuals nowadays, but the era of boomer shooters really did showcase some visually staggering games. Due to the limitations of the time, developers and artists really had to push the boat out on crafting worlds that were immersive and visually interesting. The developers of Dread Templar have done the same here, pushing all out on creating a beautifully horrifying Lovecraftian world, that’s filled with visual representations of misery, suffering and Hellish surrealism.
There’s an odd charm to these low-res style visuals. Many gamers, myself included, find the low-res textures more disturbing as your mind usually fills in the gaps of what you see. I will always stand by my argument that 90’s Resident Evil zombies are scarier than what we usually get now. And the developers have done an incredible job for the most part, at making a disturbing world along with its goulash denizens.
While the visuals are blocky, it only adds to the creepiness of the environments, providing extra layers to the atmosphere and above all, it fits perfectly well with the ultra-violent and chaotic tone of the gameplay. I grew up with these types of visuals and I’ll always love them.
The Dread Templar developers have managed to create a brilliant variation of worlds for players to explore, with some neat locations including a massive underground area filled with old pirate ships, and an ancient world covered in sand and blood. It’s all great stuff to explore and shoot your way through. My only complaints regarding the presentation are with some main locations feel a little underwhelming, such as the aforementioned ghost ship level, which feels very samey throughout. The idea is really great, and everything looks very dead and still, lifeless without colour, but this means everything in the environment looks exactly the same, from cave walls to the deck of the ship.
There are a couple of other locations which feel a little repetitive or lack the epic detail of the more engaging environments, with the depths of Hell being neon-lit just feeling more like a Twitch Streamers bedroom. But on the whole Dread Templar looks amazing, the sound design and music are top stuff.
Booming Shooting at it’s finest
Dread Templar is a 90’s boomer shooter through and through, in both visuals and gameplay. The developers have kept to the rule of KISS and kept things simple, yet really engaging. A homage to the era of Boomer Shooters, but more refined and focused due to some modern inclusions, such as the dash mechanic and quick swapping (made very popular by the likes of DOOM Eternal).
The Dread Templar will venture through the Realm of Evil, level by level, dismembering and shooting anything that comes in their path. So, for players, this means a vast amount of exploring as they look for keys, weapons, upgrades, and of course enemies to shoot in the face while avoiding other certain forms of certain death and solving the odd, puzzle here and there (which may or may not involve the use of bullet time).
Level design is incredibly strong, with plenty of secrets to discover, interesting combat encounters which vary depending on the environment itself, and more thorough side areas, which present unique challenges to players and reward them handsomely for completion. There are some cool set pieces, one of the more visually staggering and highly octane ones involving a mine cart.
There is a fair share of platforming, as the Dread Templar himself can speedily dash and use bullet time to avoid the plentiful amount of chasms, death traps and falling ceilings which make you into a Dread Templar sandwich. One of the more interesting design choices to Dread Templar is the use of manual saves, which will definitely seem odd, considering Boomer Shooters back in the day didn’t use this system. You could freely spam the quick save button or more crushing was the fact there were no saves during levels. It’s a neat choice, and thankfully save crystals are plentiful, but limited, and you will be happy to hear there is the odd auto save. This makes the lengthier levels more bearable. The one thing which was rather odd, and hopefully will be patched out, is saving does not freeze the world around you. Meaning you could be saving and an enemy will just pop out of nowhere to kill you off … annoying.
BOOM, BOOM, Shake, shake the DOOM! 
Dread Templar absolutely nails the impact of carnage you impose on the underworld, with lighting speed movement, fierce melee combat and weighty weapons that simply blast to bits the foes before the barrel. There’s a nice selection of weapons from the trusty duel pistols, sleek katana and of course the faithful pump action shotgun. All weapons have a purpose and using them in various combinations will ensure you’ll live to the next encounter.
There are also some neat exotic weapons, including a wristband that shoots electric darts, a Hellish heavy pistol and a Rocket launcher to blast the larger enemies to bits rounding this epic roster up the Demonic Fist, Katanas and the Black Bow. These last three can do some devastating attacks if used correctly and are great as a last resort type of defence when the s*** hits the fan. And of course, you can do a lot of damage in slow Mo too, which looks cool and gives you some space to breathe and think.
Everything for Dread Templar’s combat and use of weaponry just flowed beautifully well, delivering some of the most intense, energetic brutality I’ve played in quite a while.
This is all matched up quite excellently with a stellar enemy line-up that will test your reflexes, quick thinking, and trigger fingers. Dread Templar developers have managed to create plenty of interesting encounters, and ambushes and mix up the enemy line-up to keep fights feeling fresh and varied throughout the preview build. While most of the enemy AI is simply to rush you and deal as much damage as possible, the combat arenas themselves save these fights from feeling like overwhelming rushes that would otherwise get annoying.
What really blew my mind were the secrets, and Dread Templar has so many of them. Ranging from small to seriously complex. My favourite was an encounter where I had to arrange prison cell doors in a certain order to open a locked area containing a powerful weapon early on. The combinations, were hidden away and only when I saw the cell doors near the end of the level, did it all click together. There are secrets, and then there are super secrets, and the developers have nailed it for their secrets.
Overall, I really apricated the small details and effort the designers went to make engaging levels, filled with secrets, optional tasks, and plenty of rewards to reap. Dread Templar manages to create intense and visceral combat encounters, and only enhance the experience with a very fun set of tools for the job. Weapons all feel great and have a purpose, the abilities such as Dash and Bullet Time lend well to offence and defence tactics while being useful for other aspects of the level design such as platforming. And the level design itself is quite masterful at the best of times.
Lastly, the upgrade system is extraordinarily varied, allowing players to assign various abilities that will have some extreme effects by themselves or stacked together to allow the Dread Templar to cause some serious carnage. You collect tokens that can be used to apply different perks such as more health and damage, but there are also the “Super-Duper” awesome perks that really change things up. Some of this will completely change your build and present new tactical advantages in combat. Such as no reloading for certain weapons, a sniper-style Shotgun, dual heavy pistols, quicker swapping between weapons and a few more.
As a bonus, there is also the inferno versions of your weapons which you can unlock, making all the base weapons even more dangerous in the right hands. This was a cool concept which I really hope to see in other games, as it works well here (and is a system seen in Forgive Me Father).
The depth of the upgrade system, really made the buffing of the Dread Templar quite immense, and as the game progressed, I was thankful to be given the gifts of the gods to ensure I could survive through the deepest parts of the underworld.
Overall?Dread Templar really does set a high bar for the Boomer Shooter revival, and while there are some small issues I had with the game, overall it’s freaking phenomenal. The action, level design, soundtrack, upgrade system and the number of secrets were ungodly! I cannot highly recommend Dread Templar enough, as this will satisfy the bloodlust of any hardcore Boomer Shooter, and any fan of cool, hardcore First Person Shooters.
++ Great, intense and brutal combat and gameplay
++ Cool-level design with plenty of secrets and side tasks
+ Awesome soundtrack and presentation
+ Great gameplay elements such as the upgrade system
- Some side challenges are not so great
- A couple of environments look really underwhelming
- Small quality of life issues such as not freezing the world while saving
A Steam review key of Dread Templar was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
