''Prodeus'' is a

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

game developed by Bounding Box Software and published by

Humble Games Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and ...

. The game was

crowdfunded Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance, to fund projects "without standard financial ...

by a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign in April 2019. An

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

version was released on November 9, 2020. The full game was released on

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Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

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, and

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in September 2022. A DLC was announced for the game in 2023.

Gameplay

The developers describe ''Prodeus'' as "the first-person shooter of old, re-imagined using modern rendering techniques." The gameplay resembles that of classic 1990s

s such as ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (1934–2020), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitche ...

'' and '' Quake''. The player must explore complex levels, sometimes searching out keys to progress, while engaging enemies in fast-paced combat using a variety of weapons. To help the player find their way, and to aid in discovering secrets, the game features an

automap A mini-map or minimap is a miniature map HUD element that is often placed at a screen corner in video games to help players in orienting themselves within the game world. They are often only a small portion of the screen and must be selective ...

similar in function to those featured in games such as ''Doom'', ''

Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a 1996 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by 3D Realms and published by FormGen for MS-DOS. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published ...

'', and ''

Metroid Prime ''Metroid Prime'' is a 2002 action-adventure game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. ''Metroid Prime'' is the fifth main '' Metroid'' game and the first to use 3D computer graphics and a first-person perspec ...

''. ''Prodeus'' employs a modern game engine to extend the experience of classic shooters with visuals such as dynamic lighting and

particle effects In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical p ...

, interactive levels, a gore system, and a dynamic soundtrack. Though the game may be played entirely with modern visuals, the game allows the player to apply

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of s ...

s that give the game a pixelated look, simulating resolutions down to

360p Low-definition television (LDTV) refers to TV systems that have a lower screen resolution than standard-definition television systems. The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same (or si ...

or even 216p.

Plot

The player assumes control of a corrupted agent of ''Prodeus'', the mysterious creator of the player and the game world. The only goal is to destroy ''Prodeus'' and anything that gets in the way.

Development

Developers Mike Voeller and Jason Mojica met while working together at

Raven Software Raven Software Corporation (trade name: Raven; formerly Raven Software, Inc.) is an American video game developer based in Middleton, Wisconsin, and part of Activision. Founded in May 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel, the company is most ...

on '' Singularity''. By 2017, Voeller had decided to leave the industry to pursue an idea for a retro first-person shooter (that would become ''Prodeus''). Around that time, Mojica reconnected with Voeller and decided to leave his job at

Starbreeze Studios Starbreeze AB is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. The studios's notable games developed include '' The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay'', ''Payday 2'' and '' Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons''. Founde ...

to join the project. Later, the two recruited

Andrew Hulshult Andrew Hulshult is an American video game music composer and sound designer. He is best known for his work with New Blood Interactive as well as his scores for several first-person shooters, such as ''Dusk'', '' Quake Champions'', and ''Doom Et ...

for the soundtrack and Josh "Dragonfly" O'Sullivan from the ''Doom''

modding Modding (from "modifying") is the act of modifying hardware, software, or anything else to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specification or appearance. The term is often used in reference to vid ...

community to work on level design. ''Prodeus'' was announced in November 2018. The launch trailer and later gameplay demos were created with a pre-

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

version of the game showcasing a typical level. The developers have stated that community engagement was considered a core principle of the game from the beginning. Thus, ''Prodeus'' includes an integrated level editor from day one. Anyone who owns the game on a PC will have the same tools used by the developers to make levels from scratch. The level editor is built specifically for ''Prodeus'' and is designed for speed and ease of use. Despite originally promising a native

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

version, it was announced on September 5, 2022 that the game would instead merely be tailored for the

Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

compatibility layer, citing issues with platform support from the

Unity Unity is the state of being as one (either literally or figuratively). It may also refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpoo ...

game engine.

Reception

''Prodeus'' received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://prodeusgame.com/ First-person shooters Early access video games 2022 video games Windows games Cancelled Linux games MacOS games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Xbox One games Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Andrew Hulshult Kickstarter-funded video games Indie games Multiplayer and single-player video games Sprite-based first-person shooters Humble Games games