WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is as much of a love letter to the so-called “boomer shooter” genre (think DOOM, Quake, etc) as it is a physical extension of it. You can feel a real nostalgia for the genre in the game put in there by the developers, which you can see in quite a few similar titles on the market right now (see my review of Dread Templar for one such example.) It isn’t hard to see why developers would be nostalgic for these games and want to emulate them; They’re classic, tried, and true shooters that you can more or less still enjoy to this day.
What makes WRATH: Aeon of Ruin different is that the game is built using the original Quake’s technology.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t play enough of Quake or Quake 2 to proclaim any expertise on the games or their mechanics. I can’t tell you just by playing WRATH: Aeon of Ruin that the game uses the same engine. I know that the developers proudly claim that it uses Quake-1 technology, which means they used the game’s original engine or made a similar one. Either way, you can see the similarity when you play it.
Most notably, the Quake tech shows in the game’s speed, which defines WRATH: Aeon of Ruin’s tone of play. You move very, very fast in this game, and so do the enemies. Sometimes, I almost felt a little sick with how quickly I was dashing across the screen, but I adjusted pretty quickly. Movement tech is everything in WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, with the first weapon you acquire also functioning as an essential tool for platforming across the game’s 15 levels.
At times, however, the game’s movement mechanics kind of fight it. I remember Quake’s level design being more blocky, with sharp, easy-to-navigate corners and nice, even spacing. WRATH: Aeon of Ruin’s hallways can feel cramped and hard to navigate, with lots of turns and nooks and crannies that you smack into at high speeds and curved corners that can be awkward to navigate at your speed and lead to blind corners full of enemies.
If you’ve read my reviews, you’ll notice I often complain about tutorials that pause gameplay, demand to be read, and take up a lot of time to explain something that could have been more easily shown to the player. WRATH: Aeon of Ruin most certainly does not have this problem, with its so-called tutorial feeling almost optional, with an NPC briefly explaining basic controls over text while the game allows you to proceed with or without reading.
Most of these controls are self-explanatory, and the important key binds, like for using artifacts (power-ups, basically), show up front and center on the screen so you can’t miss them. I did, however, sort of miss the part about how you can somehow use crouching and jumping to achieve a longer jump. I feel as though not understanding this mechanic led to me missing out on a lot of power-ups throughout the game.
This sort of lack of guidance continues throughout the game, which has no compass or objective markers or anything, though you will more or less be able to navigate the levels without the need for such guidance.
What I really appreciate about WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is the game’s unique take on its weapons. The guns you pick up in WRATH: Aeon of Ruin are unique in form and function. Not only do they have unique looks and themes, such as a Gatling gun that exclusively fires demon fangs at your enemy, but they also function in ways you might not expect them to and wouldn’t see in other titles.
One such example of this is your first firearm, a revolver that fires quote-unquote “slugs” and has a three-round cylinder. This gun never requires reloading and has an alternate fire mode that fires all three bullets at once. To my surprise, a double-barrel shotgun you find shortly after has an alternate fire mode that charges the gun up like some kind of laser beam. This unique presentation continues for all of the game’s weapons, including several firearms and a few melee weapons.
Probably one of the most interesting mechanics in WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is the game’s use of save states. These act like consumables, being found in levels and used as you wish to save your game / set a respawn point exactly where you used it. This creates a sort of strategic element when you use your saves, which are best held on to until after you pass a hard encounter you don’t want to repeat, but not held on to for so long that you lose them in death.
I ran into a few bugs and performance issues during my time with WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, but nothing particularly game-breaking. The most intrusive was a random crash when starting my first new game, which didn’t repeat itself. Beyond that, it was mostly just the game momentarily freezing up when I used a save or some objects not going to my inventory when I picked them up. I did have this one weird bug with the menu when exiting the game, but I was already closing the game at that point anyway.
The Final Word
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is a great spiritual successor to Quake, using the game’s engine to deliver a modern take on the mechanics. Though the map design can feel claustrophobic, the game is fun and has interesting takes on weapons, enemies, and other core boomer-shooter mechanics with minimal bugs.
8
Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is available on Steam, GoG, Xbox and Epic Games.