Every retro shooter straddles the line between classic and modern design, whether it's a new game built in an old engine like Ion Fury and Wrath, or a good old-fashioned murderfest that uses cutting edge tech like Amid Evil. But none walk that line as precisely as Bounding Box Software's Prodeus. This is an anachronistic high-wire act, synthesising old and new ideas in a way that is always exciting, occasionally inspired, and defies easy categorisation.
Even the base premise is wilfully elusive, although this is well in the spirit of the genre's foundational texts. You're an archetypal space marine trapped on a barren but mineral rich asteroid, where a cataclysm has resulted in an all-out war between two interdimensional factions – one representing order, and the other chaos. From your perspective, both sides are equally in your way, and will die by the hundreds, if not thousands, as you carve a path across the surface of the asteroid and beyond.
Prodeus' amalgamated personality is evident in its visual style, which mimics the 2.5D graphics of early id-tech and Build engine games then infuses it with modern lighting and visual effects. Terrain and environments are rendered in angular 3D, while objects and enemies are presented as chunky sprites (although there's an option to swap them for 3D models too). When you fire a rocket or shoot an explosive barrel, the resulting blast will illuminate the scene in a fiery orange glow, while environmental light sources glisten off gunmetal corridors and rain-slicked terrain.