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.
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.