Prodeus Reviews
An okay port of an amazing game
I certainly can’t claim Prodeus is a bad game, it just left me thoroughly underwhelmed. Perhaps this encapsulates the underlying issue with the desire to create a game whose primary ambition is to recreate the feeling of playing older titles.
Prodeus travels down well-worn territory but does so covered in substantially more red (and blue) goo. Its mix of modern effects and retro visuals coalesce well and give it enough of its own identity that’s bolstered by its buckets of blood.
Prodeus is self-consciously an old-school shooter, and it does a good job in replicating the frenetic, explosive gunplay and oppressive atmosphere of classic 90’s FPS titles like Doom and Quake. Sadly, beyond some interesting aesthetics, it doesn’t really stake out much of an identity of its own. The lack of any real story, worldbuilding or unique gameplay mechanics stops Prodeus short of being something really special. Still, if you’d like a game where you can switch off your brain and just exercise your trigger finger, Prodeus provides a great world to blast your way through.
The mixture of visual styles of Prodeus, combined with agile and responsive gameplay, results in something that we can call modern nostalgia. If you enjoy FPS games in general, but you want to take a walk in the past to kill the desire for a title with a retro feel without appealing to the obviousness of the classics, this is the game you are looking for.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Prodeus would have been great if it was only a mere shooter heavily inspired by 2016’s DOOM, but its developers went above and beyond. What an amazing game. It’s both a love letter to old and modern shooters, embracing the best elements from both eras. Its levels are amazing, its gameplay is fast-paced and punchy, its soundtrack is insane… and it’s got a freaking phenomenal level editor that will basically ensure that players will have an endless supply of brand new levels to tackle for the foreseeable future.
Prodeus is stupidly fun, looks incredible, sounds fantastic, and is launching into a subscription service many people reading this may have. It’s been a bit of a weird marketing cycle leading up to the launch of the game, but I hope as many people as possible at least try it out. It’s one hell of a love letter to the FPS genre for both the old and the new.
Put the BOOM in boomer shooter and paint the town red like it’s 1995
All in all, it’s safe to say Prodeus is a great game on a good path. Despite having some pacing problems and questionable design choices, it’s clear that the developers have put much love and attention into every aspect of it. And if you finish the campaign and still yearn for more, there is always a huge array of creative community created maps and a powerful built-in level editor tool, supported by people who seem to truly care about the community.