Today is a really good day for retro FPS enthusiasts. Out of the blue, indie developer Saibot Studios has released a campaign demo for its throwback shooter Hellbound. An arena-style shooter taking inspiration from Doom and Serious Sam, a Tweet from the official Twitter account states this is for the "ETERNAL wait." It's like these companies know their consumers or something.
This isn't actually the first time players have gotten a chance to sample Hellbound. Sometime last year, a free horde mode demo was released to give everyone an idea of what Saibot was trying to achieve. Mostly acting as a graphical tech demo, it did feature solid movement and some neat enemies. It had a ton of potential, which is probably what this campaign mode will tap into.
If you want to give the demo a go, it's currently available on Steam. Since the store page is a little funky to navigate, you'll have to look on the right-hand side to see the small link that says "Download Demo." From there, you'll be 2.9 GB away from jumping into the action.
As the Steam page notes, Hellbound is still currently slated for a 2019 release. With only a month left to go in the year, it's possible that the final release is right around the corner. With the level of polish that survival demo had, it wouldn't be too surprising to see this come out in the next week or so.
Even if it doesn't, we should be thankful that there are developers out there willing to recapture what made 90s shooters so great. While modern games might have fancy graphics, loads of customization, and more realized online modes, something has been lost ever since we entered the new Millenium. Shooters became more streamlined and simplified in a bid to appeal to the masses, which has resulted in Call of Duty reigning supreme for two generations now.
It's fine to want something new, but there's definitely a way to marry the levels and enemies from the past with the technology of today. Hellbound looks to be doing that, and with the lack of Doom Eternal in our lives, it should be great.
Source: Twitter