
3D Realms announces Graven, the spiritual successor to Hexen II - maydemir
https://www.techspot.com/news/86651-3d-realms-announces-graven-spiritual-successor-hexen-ii.html
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badlucklottery
It's interesting that 3D Realms, a company that was crushed by Duke Nukem
Forever chasing the latest/greatest engines and gameplay trends, it making a
big comeback with shooters with a focus on solid art style and "classic"
gameplay over graphics and gimmicks.

 _Ion Fury_ was great and _Wrath: Aeon of Ruin_ and _Graven_ both seem to be
on track to be great as well.

~~~
ido
It has been somewhat marred by yielding to review bombers regarding some
trans- and homophobic content
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Fury#Controversy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Fury#Controversy)

~~~
kristopolous
It's unfortunate these people said/did that but can we please stop conflating
the personal transgressions of employees as if it's reflective of the company
as a whole?

It's a few employees, probably early 20s, making some insensitive and off
color remarks. That's it, nothing more

~~~
asutekku
Having it in your product will affect the whole product.

~~~
jlawson
Reminds me of a quote from JK Simmons' character in the prison drama Oz. The
other prisoner was asking if it was okay to have a black man's tissues used in
a dental graft on his gums.

"Define purity."

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iakov
If you find yourself itching to play a retro FPS on your modern machine, give
DUSK [0] a try.

The style is on point. This game is ugly where it counts, the environments are
blocky and grotesque. The guns have satisfying sounds and animations, the
enemies are numerous and the bosses are fun. This game really makes me feel
like I'm a kid playing video games instead of last classes of school.

I'm waiting for HROT [1] to be released. It's supposed to be similar to DUSK,
but set in Czechoslovakia. The screenshots are very promising...

[0]
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/519860/DUSK/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/519860/DUSK/)

[1]
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/)

~~~
aooeeu
Or GOG, though the price is higher right now.
[https://www.gog.com/game/dusk](https://www.gog.com/game/dusk)

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albertzeyer
I really would like to see a proper successor of Commander Keen. Although I
have no idea how it would look like with modern technology.

Afaik, 3D Realms has the rights on it, right?

[https://legacy.3drealms.com/keenhistory/](https://legacy.3drealms.com/keenhistory/)

~~~
Cthulhu_
You're in luck:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpneMd8xTFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpneMd8xTFw)

It looks like they went for a cartoon aesthetic similar to Fairly Odd Parents
& co.

~~~
Narishma
Not much luck. That's a mobile game and probably cancelled since there hasn't
been any news about it for more than a year.

~~~
thih9
Cancellation seems likely, the "gokeen.com" link from the trailer now points
to [https://bethesda.net/en/dashboard](https://bethesda.net/en/dashboard) ,
with no information about the game.

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Razengan
Finally! I hope it's a faithful return to the simplicity of no-nonsense
hack-&-slash (and of course zap), untainted by "quests" and "missions" etc.

Even the Doom revival somewhat fell prey to complexity for the sake of
complexity.

There's certainly a lot of merit in reviving old ideas for a new era, even if
none of the original fans were alive to bank on the nostalgia alone.

~~~
weyland108
Doom eternal is awesome ... I would say the doom revival couldn’t be any
better.

~~~
Razengan
Yes, not saying Doom isn't awesome, just that it would be nice to have games
where you just fight without worrying about any distractions.

e.g. instead of hunting for keys or cards or levers, or trying to spot secret
entrances, they could replace that "artificial" complexity with improved
monster AI: Learning enemy patterns and having the enemy learn ours in turn,
using a destructible environment to dodge or assist attacks, and figuring out
how to deceive their virtual senses (like throwing an object to distract them)
and so on.

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b0rsuk
Yess!! I'm probably going to be disappointed by this one, but I'm cautiously
optimistic. Definitely the best 2020 news so far. HeXeN was one of most
thrilling games of my childhood. It left a big impression on me. I even made a
pretty creative balancing/fun mod for HeXeN using the source port Vavoom. I
lost the code in a hard drive crash though.

The game was far from perfect and there are good reasons it didn't reach the
popularity of DooM or even Heretic. What would you do to make HeXeN and HeXeN
II more fun? Here's my take:

1\. Both HeXeN games suffered from unfun level design. It was nice looking,
but confusing to navigate, especially switch hunting. You alternatively had
adrenaline rushes and pixel hunting. I think both provide a different
experience and doesn't mesh better than Chess Boxing.

2\. HeXeN classes don't really have distinct playstyles. They're all shooters
at core except for Warrior/Paladin. More could be done to diversify them. In
particular, no late game weapon was meant for up close.

3\. The game is too linear and not very modular in its level design. You can
warp to any Heretic level and start slaughter from that point. It was a legacy
of DooM design which was originally meant to play with limited lives, arcade-
style.

4\. HeXeN 1 was notorious for "haha, you die!" traps that required either
foreknowledge or LIGHTNING reflexes to dodge.

5\. Low enemy variety compared to DooM 2. You kept fighting the same few dudes
over and over, and 4 weapon limit per class is... not a lot, even with Tome of
Power.

6\. They should limit the ability to hog inventory items, for example like in
Heretic where you can only carry 1 of each to next level.

7\. HeXeN never rewarded people for finding secret rooms. It punished those
who didn't find them, because instead of goodies they had switches and keys
mandatory to progress. H1 and H2 had very few optional secret rooms.

~~~
SuperPaintMan
A few months ago I did a passthrough of Wrath Of Chronos, and it really
breathed some life into Hexen. It even works for other DOOM wads and can be a
fun change of pace to your standard IWAD, give it a shot if DOOM RPGs sound up
your alley :)

[https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=35846](https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=35846)

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unixhero
2020 has been a great year in this regard;

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_Remastered_Collection/)

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lostgame
There seems to have been a renissance of this old school early / mid 90's FPS
genre lately. I love it!

I think Quake and Hexen for the Sega Saturn were two of the first FPS games I
ever seriously played through, the former running on the exceptional Lobotomy
engine that also fueled the fantastic Saturn exclusive 'Exhumed'. :)

~~~
robin_reala
All hail Ezra Dreisbach! Eurogamer managed to get an interview with him a
decade ago: [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/death-tanks-ezra-
driesbac...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/death-tanks-ezra-driesbach-
interview)

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ChuckNorris89
Maybe I'm getting old but man, I miss the 90's gaming era ( _you can "ok,
boomer" me_). Quake, Half Life, Unreal, Hexen, Heretic, Blood...

If anyone is interested in a modern 90's style FPS, I recommend you try Dusk.

~~~
xioxox
There is also Doom (2016) which (mostly) honours the simplicity of play found
in Doom and Quake, but I found the mostly arena-style action rather dull and
repetitive after a while. I missed the tunnels and so on in original games.
Personally I'm now into modern games like the Dishonored series or Prey
(2017), which a great mix of story, puzzle solving and action.

~~~
minusf
doom 2016 is a great game but it is fundamentally different from classic doom.
the biggest difference being resources earned by glory kills vs resource
management coming from level design.

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orliesaurus
I love these kind of games, check out WRATH: Aeon of Ruin by the same studio,
I truly recommend it! So much fun, reminds me of being young and silly..
wasting afternoons exploring and admiring the same level for countless hours
(back when internet was only very limited by my parents haha)

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shmerl
Oh, after Ion Fury that should be good, if they'll make the Linux version.

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jbverschoor
To be released in 2045

