WRATH: Aeon of Ruin’s Review

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WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is a modern old school first-person shooter done right! WRATH: Aeon of Ruin got released for PC and PS4 on November 22th 2019 and received a positive response from the community due to the style and atmosphere being royal to the classic first-person shooters. Developed and published by KillPixel, 3D Realms and 1C Entertainment.

In WRATH, you play as the Outlander. You have been out on the Ageless Sea and now find yourself on the shores of a dying world. You soon encounter a figure cloaked in white who is known as the Shepherd of Wayward Souls, who will task you with the mission to hunt down the remaining guardians of the Old World. You will traverse ruins, miers and a lot more in order to reach those guardians and fight the horrors that lurk within.

WRATH is powered by the well-known Quake 1 technology. Due to Quake 1 being one of the most iconic titles when it comes to old school first-person shooters, it would only be right to use the same technology. That being said, anybody who has played earlier old school first-person shooters such as Quake 1, will most likely be familiar with how the game plays movement-wise. In the beginning, you are armed with a blade that works as your melee weapon and method of movement when you need a burst of speed. It works really well when you try to jump over a big gap! Throughout your journey, you will unlock more weapons that will aid you on your journey. Most of the weapons you acquire will also have an alternative fire function when using the RMB. You can unlock anything from a pistol that also functions as a shotgun and to a launcher that can fire cyst orbs. At the current state of the game, only five stages are available. The stages can take 1-3h to beat depending on your difficulty and how much of the stage you actually explore. In order to manually save, you must find a Soul Tether. Soul Tethers will be scattered throughout the game and upon saving, one will be consumed. Altars will also be scattered around the stages and works as a one-time savepoint. You will also be able to find armor that will reduce the damage if you get hit by a projectile or if you get slashed by your enemies. If you take damage, the armor will break down and the percentage of damage taken will increase. Strafing is also a brilliant way to get rid of enemy projectiles due to most shooting patterns always going straight! The different variations of enemies really make the game more fun and unique! It encourages the player to use the weapon suited for the right enemy. This is due to each enemy having a specific ammo drop for certain weapons!  

As mentioned earlier, the graphics and atmosphere stays loyal to old school first-person shooters. I can imagine someone who grew up with games like these will pickup WRATH and still enjoy it to the fullest! From a retro perspective, this game looks pretty good! The sound is also really good! The sound of your guns firing really sounds like something straight out of an old-school shooter! You won’t be able to pay much attention to the soundtrack due to all things going on at the screen. You will be way too busy blasting enemies and dodging projectiles. WRATH is forgiving when it comes to learning or remembering the controls! The game will tell you what to do whenever a new mechanic is being introduced and if you forget what key to press to perform a certain action, you can always press the TAB key to see the controls. 

Before beginning your journey, you will be asked what difficulty you would like to play on! I recommend Normal difficulty since it offers just the right amount of challenge. In my opinion, the game is already pretty challenging on the Normal difficulty. I would suggest picking a higher difficulty if you’d like to push your limits. Once you’ve beaten the game, I would highly suggest waiting for the later updates due to the game still being in early access. I myself don’t see a reason why you would play through these really long stages again! It can be a bit overwhelming sometimes with long stages. I really recommend WRATH for those who want to get into old school first-person shooters! Due to the flexibility when it comes to the difficulty, I really think anyone can pick this up! 

To wrap things up, I really think that WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is worthy of being called an old school first-person shooter considering it was released in 2019. I can’t wait to see what plans the developers got for this game! 

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.

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WRATH: Aeon of Ruin's Review
  • Gameplay - 9/10
    9/10
  • Graphics - 9/10
    9/10
  • Sound - 8/10
    8/10
  • Replay Value - 3/10
    3/10
Overall
7/10

Summary

To wrap things up, I really think that WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is worthy of being called an old school first-person shooter considering it was released in 2019. I can’t wait to see what plans the developers got for this game!


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