Intel is bringing in some major AI performance improvements with its next-gen Panther Lake client CPUs while Clearwater Forest chips are in fabs.
The demo for this upcoming horror-RPG-FPS built in the Doom engine might already be the most terrifying thing I play all year, and I can't wait for more
09.01.2024 - 01:37 / pcgamer.com
I knew I was in for a stomach-churning time with Divine Frequency's demo after I finally acquired my first weapon. I came up to a fenced hallway in the game's vast industrial underbelly and spied an ominous figure looming way down the hall. The light above it cut out, I turned around, and there it was: a horrible faceless mannequin an eyelash's length away.
I panicked, started blasting, and swore so loud my girlfriend heard down the hall. Sike! The mannequin is actually completely harmless, and I just wasted precious ammo and weapon durability on a prank. Divine Frequency punked me.
This horror-FPS-RPG launched its first Steam demo during 2023's Realms Deep event, a former mod project now getting reworked into a full game. It's built on GZDoom, the ubiquitous source port of id Software's classic, and it's one of those Doom-based games that makes you say «wait, you can do this in the Doom engine?»
It's looking like a game with some capital-L Lore, casting you as some kind of agent plumbing the depths of a vast and terrible nightmare realm. There were peeks at some distinctly SCP-flavored background text here and there giving that delicious contrast of banal agency-speak trying to wrangle the unknowable horrors around you. It never felt like I was getting beat over the head with all that Lore, but instead it gave me the great feeling of witnessing the tip of a storytelling iceberg.
The shooting and exploration reminds me most of System Shock 2, of all things. You creep along these utterly vile, rusted underhalls ready for freakish creatures to jump out at you from any corner—these things always seem to be positioned right in your blind spot on entering a room. They go down with just one or two hits from the satisfyingly beefy basic pistol, but you're also pretty fragile and these things move fast. I particularly hated (read: loved) this one enemy type that both looks and moves like a house centipede—awful, awful little guys just rushing around faster than it feels like anything should.
Ammo is scarce, and Divine Frequency also cribs System Shock 2's weapon degradation system, one of only a few durability mechanics I've ever enjoyed in a game. An exceedingly rare repair consumable always feels like a godsend whenever you find one, and while I always felt the pressure of my resource constraints, I was never on the verge of the demo being unfinishable.
The demo level takes you through this dreamlike labyrinth where areas transform behind you or even in front of your very eyes, a surreal tech trick I absolutely loved in last year's Alan Wake 2 and fellow Doom project myhouse.wad. In our era of unprecedented graphical and computing power, I would like to see more impossible mindscapes in my videogames.
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