AMID EVIL

Ancient citadels, drowned ruins, cosmic temples, and impossible floating fortresses form the battlegrounds of a ferocious old-school fantasy shooter. AMID EVIL channels the speed, secrets, and theatrical excess of 1990s PC FPS classics, but replaces shotguns and assault rifles with axes, staffs, enchanted swords, and planet-sized magical ordnance. Its mood is darkly heroic rather than oppressive: every room feels like an invitation to turn a mob of monsters into glowing soul fuel. The result is a campaign that rewards aggression, curiosity, and a willingness to get lost in labyrinthine spaces.

Combat revolves around seven wildly different weapons, each with a distinct purpose and a secondary state powered by the souls dropped by defeated enemies. You might carve through close-range threats with a massive axe, launch explosive arcs of energy, freeze foes solid, or use a celestial weapon to hurl entire worlds through a crowded arena. Levels are broad and nonlinear, packed with key hunts, vertical routes, hidden switches, optional rewards, and secret areas that make careful exploration worthwhile. Across seven episode-sized realms, enemy rosters and environmental hazards continually change, while selectable difficulty settings and classic cheat options let players tune the experience from a brisk power fantasy to a demanding retro shooter test.

What separates AMID EVIL from the wider retro-FPS revival is its committed high-fantasy identity and the imaginative scale of its locations. Unreal Engine 4 gives its deliberately low-poly visual language rich lighting, fog, reflections, and effects, with ray tracing and DLSS support available for suitably equipped PCs; Andrew Hulshult’s heavy, atmospheric score supplies the necessary momentum. It has the maze-like level design and secret hunting of Heretic and Hexen, with the forward drive of DUSK, yet its weapon set feels far less conventional than either. Players who enjoy fast movement, manual exploration, and replaying stages to uncover every hidden path should find plenty here, while newcomers can still ease in through forgiving difficulty settings.