There have been a decent number of "revival" shooters coming out for over half a decade now, but I think what makes Hedon stick out to me more than any of them comes down to its level design. Beyond a gimmick/secret level, a lot of the revival shooters don't really get out of their comfort zone when it comes to non-linear but otherwise fairly straightforward level design/progression and it's understandable they don't as the games they're inspired by most were like too for the sake of pacing out action and enemy encounters.

Hedon doesn't conform to that style of level design and decides to go in a direction more reminiscent of a game like Arx Fatalis (or for that matter, any well known "im-sim") where it gives fully fleshed out fantasy levels that are detailed, unique, fully believable as places that exist in the setting, and most of all, unapologetically large in scale because the places would not work without said scale. The last part in particular is a large point of contention for some people as aside from not being the norm for this style of shooter, it's one that demands the player to pay attention and solve environmental puzzles to continue progression with minimal hand holding in between all the usual fast paced action that comes with a shooting like this.

For some people, they can't jump the barrier ("it's too maze-like", "there's barley any shooting", "what am I supposed to do???") but for me, is the exact sort of level design I wish more games in general tried as not only does it present a unique type of challenge for the player, but it really makes the attention to detail on these levels shine through and gives a level of memorability to them (such as a mansion owned by a demonic family where the player learns of their squabbling and backstabbing between one another, a recently abandoned Dwarven fortress around a frozen hellscape, a succubus' "pleasure domain" with corrupted gardens, courtyards, and some of the trippiest environments I've seen since Constantine's Mansion from Thief: Dark Project).

It is worth mentioning that Hedon is split into two episodes, the first one being similar to what you'd expect from a level by level shooter. However, the second episode, Bloodrite (which was a completely free update for anyone who already owned the game at the time which is amazing when the thing's about twice as big as the first episode) introduces fully interconnected levels between two different hub areas that loop back around to each other in a really satisfying way while only increasing the scale and complexity of the levels by rewarding backtracking greatly (in other words, it's Strife but better).

On top of that, the arsenal of weapons feel great to use, there are unique difficulty modes for replay value such as a mode that replaces the standard ranged weapons with new and unique melee ones, the ost is a cool mix of ambient/psychedelic metal with the occasional licensed Alexander Brandon electronic music, and a decent amount of the secrets contain sexy pin up posters of muscular orcs and demons.

tl;dr I can't believe a solo dev ex-smut artist has better level design sensibilities than most level designers in the industry currently.

Not one of the best retro-style shooters I’ve ever played but certainly a fun ride I didn’t mind sticking through to the end. The weapon toolbox is really sick and it gives you a bunch of options for entering the action sections with fervor. The game on Hardcore provided a pretty sufficient challenge that never forced me into blatant savescumming but still kept me closely monitoring my vitals and ammo. All of the levels are pretty big, reflected in their pretty beefy par times. The 10 maps end up feeling quite lengthy, and my first playthrough on Hardcore took me about 13 hours. It doesn’t string together as much gunplay as a lot of its contemporaries and inspirations, because there’s definitely more of a focus on exploration here, but the combat sections usually work pretty well, even when the game kinda blatantly locks you in a room with 60 enemies with a battle soundtrack. There’s even a pretty passable stealth mechanic that works well, even though I didn’t find myself using it pretty much at all.

The “puzzles” are usually fine; If you find yourself unsure what to do with a quest item you have, the best thing to do is just take it to a place you can’t get through. If you get in a routine of this, you barely have to think about what you’re doing in the first place. There’s only one time in the game I had to find myself looking up a walkthrough to find a what-seems-like invisible book sticking out on a wall revealing a switch for a door, and I’m glad the game never got that stupid about a solution ever again.

I feel like the artstyle and graphics really miss the mark here, it feels like a chaotic mess of the usual GZdoom big-polygon 3D environments which are still nice, and even beautiful at times, mixed with raw and unpixelated art that seems like it’s retrieved from the most mediocre annals of D&D portrait DeviantArt, and I think that dissonance really fucks things up the most for me here. It’s not an ugly game per se, but one that just has me routinely remembering “oh yeah, I’m just looking at stringed-together smoke and mirrors right now, and not having an immersive experience”. The art misses a lot of what makes its influences so timeless, because I can look at the models for enemies from Doom and see the beautiful miniatures that were made for the enemies, but as for this, the art style seems to have some confusion between low effort and low game engine capabilities. A great modern example of the retro look with amazing visuals is Ion Fury, which has some absolutely incredible art direction. The way-too-horny official art I’ve seen for the game’s protagonist Zan (who is an okay protagonist, also) hardly has any connection with her borderline lazy artwork in game when you can see yourself in mirrors.

This is unnaturally lore-heavy for this type of game, and while I thought the story at hand was pretty interesting with its lite-D&D inspiration, the amount of reading the game asks me to do between action sections really gets rough, and when the game actually wants to stop and show me the “story”, the pacing just plummets. I am just really sick and tired of these “trip” sections that Far Cry started to popularize, where the protagonist enters some trippy sequences after coming into contact with drugs, or hitting their head, or whatever, you know what I’m talking about…while this isn’t the 100% entirety of the Errant Signal level, it’s still a majority of it and it just becomes a slog with the kinda unfitting (while still good) music and the megaton of unpaced exposition, even though it’s chased with a pretty fun boss battle.

The music is…interesting. It’s a mix of one part original music created by Akhzul that goes for either a dark ambient route for the quieter-exploration parts of the game or a nu-metal battle triumph, and then one part licensed OST from, among other things, Unreal. Even though I wasn’t initially complaining, it was quite weird to hear those iconic Alexander Brandon/Michiel van den Bos synths here. I’m not fully against this kind of usage, but it is a good bit weird when the context of the music hasn’t really been changed that much at all. It’s like skipping the whole step of wearing your influences on your sleeve, and just being fully clothed in them instead. Besides this, I really don’t think the licensed electronic stuff fits at all, and I think Zan’s revenge story is much better suited to the dark distorted tones that Akhzul brings to the table.

Wow. I’m totally surprised by this game. I guess i was just too carried away by the thicc waifu meme, and because of that i thought this would play mostly as a joke, like HDoom or something like that. I couldn’t be more wrong. Hedon is a fantastic game.

At the very beginning i was struck with how pretty and colorful the atmosphere was. Lightning, textures, everything related to the map aesthetic is beautiful, and that is for me a very positive thing. Spritework on the other hand –specially referring to enemies and characters in general- feels like it could have some more work into it. But still, they’re ok enough, and fit properly the overall aesthetic. Sound design is also good, but i couln’t help laughing at times at how, let’s say, moany, the sound of our heroine was.

I think some of the polarizing reviews are mainly because, despite being done in a modified Doom engine, Hedon is not really your average run and gun FPS. Instead, is a game that tends to emphasize exploration, plus also having a few puzzles here and there. In that sense, this game seems to be more inspired by Unreal and Hexen (this one, in a good way) than, let’s say, Doom or Blood. I think Strife can also be considered as an influence, for two reasons: The mix between natural/wooden environments with techbases and sci-fi elements, and also, the way this game allows you to kill in a more stealthy way but without punishing if you don’t do so.

As i said, this game is more focused on exploration. Therefore, the map layers cannot and shouldn’t be simple. I mention this because it seems to be another reason why people criticize the game. There’s nothing wrong with the map design here: Considering the kind of gaming experience Hedon proposes, maps are supposed to be complex, and even a little tricky at times. If you’re not into this kind of stuff, it’s not really Hedon’s fault. It’s also noteworthy how these maps are mostly non-linear, and can be dealed with in many different ways. This map design ties perfectly with the gameplay, the overall aesthetic, and the story.

Yes, this game has a narrative going on. And this, along with the sense of exploration is what gave me the most of the Myst/Riven vibes. You start the game without almost no idea of what’s exactly going on, just like in Myst, and slowly, you begin to form a certain background by reading notes, books, interacting with characters, and so on. I honestly feel like Hedon’s writing is not truly the best since it’s a bit hard to engage with the actual story, which also felt too ambitious in my opinion. But it’s great in the way it manages to fill the whole experience with this beautiful sense of mistery. And in this sense, MAP06 and this non-FMV sequences just like in Half-Life do a fantastic job.

Combat is pretty good here. Weapons are fantastic, and the fact that there are just 5 of them (not counting the melee ones) is perfectly balanced by their alternate fire. It’s noteworthy how amazing the two melee weapons are: The axe is extremelly satisfying to use, and the fists, alongside with the kicks, gives you the possibility of turning this game into something like a first person beat em’up. Fists and kicks might not be powerful enough to rely on them, but they are certainly fun to use. Apparently, if you play this game on Berserk mode, your arsenal is entirely replaced by melee weapons. Haven’t checked it but it sounds pretty interesting. There’s also a lot (and i mean A LOT) of items, so many that i couldn’t check all of them properly.

Enemies are ok, nothing outstanding honestly but they work just fine. I’m not a real fan of this game’s obsession at throwing you into slaughters at the end of every level during the first half. Luckily, enemy placement is better handled during the second half. What is truly excelent, in my opinion, are the boss fights. There are two of them and they are a real challenge, not like in the 90’s fps games where the bosses where a common flaw.

When it comes to the music, i’m more fond of the more ambient-like tracks. I don’t have anything against the idea of using upbeat tracks at certain moments, but i fell like the chosen ones were not that good in execution. On the contrary, the decision of using mostly guitar-based music for the atmospheric parts (instead of the typical synth-based approach for these purposes) is a fantastic decision, and they get to cover a nice palette of genres, ranging from ambient, post-rock, and even drone metal.

This incredibly ambitious game deserves all the attention from any FPS-fan.