Beyond Sunset is a gloriously cyberpunk mix of classic Doom and Deus Ex soaked in blood and neon
Built on the Doom II engine
Deus Ex and Doom have two of the most iconic aesthetics in video games. Chuck the satanic hellspawn shooter and cyberpunk immersive sim together in a pot, season with a banging soundtrack and you’ll find Beyond Sunset.
Developers Movie Games wear their inspirations on their sleeves, openly crediting Doom Eternal and Deus Ex as the two touchstones for Beyond Sunset’s gloriously violent and stylish first-person action. On top of those guiding lights, the whole game is built in a modern take on Doom II’s GZDoom engine, adding to the faithful ‘90s look of it all.
Gameplay is fast and furious, zooming from blasting away with shotguns and dual machine guns to slicing your way through enemies - who can be yakuza, zombies or robots - with a samurai sword and firing some kind of cyberpunk magic from your bare hands.
On top of the hectic action is a layer of immersive sim RPG, as you’ll be able to chat with inhabitants of Sunset City, take on side missions, upgrade your weapons and unlock new abilities to help you dash, slide and jump around your foes. Said foes will also include bigger bosses with dedicated health bars to whittle down, with a classic shooty turret robot and a humanoid mecha that looks like a mini-Gundam popping up.
Behind the eye-catching visuals is a pumping vapourwave soundtrack by Karl Vincent, which sounds like the ideal accompaniment to gunshots and people going “argh” as they’re chopped in half based on the snippet in the trailer.
Beyond Sunset’s Early Access release includes three of the game’s episodes, which should each take around an hour or two to finish. The full game is planned for release next spring, adding another two episodes, some additional features and polishing up its fluid movement and gunplay. There’s already open mod support for new weapons and levels, thanks to being built on the familiar GZDoom framework.
Beyond Sunset is out on Steam now, where it’ll cost you just over £7 during its launch sale. When it exits Early Access the price will go up. There’s a demo too, if you want to give it a shot first.