Enjoying them six degrees of freedom? If you’re looking for some modern takes on a truly revolutionary first-person shooter classic, here are some ideas.
Granted, they’re not going to be as groundbreaking as 1995’s Descent ever was. Now it’s more about taking the decades-old formula and doing your own thing based on these foundations.
Formula of Descent
What’s this formula, anyway? Descent single-handedly popularized the 6DOF sub-genre and is the first FPS to feature true 3D. If someone tells you it was Quake instead, they’re soooo wrong. The game puts you in the shoes of a mercenary whose job is to put down a rogue computer virus of alien origin.
It’s been taking over mines and robots across the Solar System and your task is to explore tunnels, shoot down all sorts of machines with a wide variety of weapons, and then shut down each mine’s reactor core. We hope you memorized the level’s layout by this time, because once you kill the reactor, this triggers a self-destruct sequence, leaving you roughly a minute to get back to the entrance. Talk about adrenaline!
And this 6DOF thing? This means you can freely move in any direction and in all six degrees, not being confined to the floor like in other first-person shooters.
Descent spawned an entire franchise and inspired other games, such as Terracide, Forsaken, Terminal Velocity, Fury3, Hellbender, Blade Force, etc. Heck, G-Police, Dead Reckoning, and probably even the likes of Lander and Outer Wilds owe a lot to Descent.
While we never got Descent 4, there’s a whole bunch of games which fill that niche. Let’s take a look.
First off, there’s Overload, whose creators include the people who worked on the first two Descent games. This is why it’s considered their spiritual successor. The premise is similar: you shut down mines overran by hostile robots by destroying their cores and escaping the facilities before they explode, but there’s also a whole bunch of other things in here as well, such as bonus objectives, an upgrade system, and a survival mode (two, actually). There’s also cross-platform multiplayer and support for user-created levels.
Second, there’s Desecrators. This one looks more like Forsaken Remastered, but with procedurally-generated levels, which ensures pretty much endless replayability. The story revolves around you stealing advanced tech from all sorts of massive space installations, so that you get ready for the ultimate heist: raiding the fabled Galactic Treasury. But you have to be careful. Guards are one thing, but you also need to be on the lookout for rival desecrators who, too, want a piece of the hi-tech pie.
And then there’s Cyber Tunnel Escape. This one is especially for those who have a VR set. If you loved escaping from reactor explosions, but can’t be bothered to play through the actual levels, this one will totally be your jam. Your goal is to survive for as long as you can in procedurally-generated tunnels. It’s a sweet little game based around one particular feature of Descent, basically.
And if none of these satisfy you, you should totally check out Ships That Fight Underground. STFU for short. No, we’re not telling you to shut up. This one feels like a mix of Descent, Allegiance, and Dead Reckoning with its focus on classes, upgrading your ship, different functions you can serve – including mining! – and the emphasis on online PvP and co-op. Its release date is yet to be announced, but you can request access to the playtesting phase. Definitely one of the most intriguing games inspired by Descent of recent times. It’s not just a modern replication of the classic, but something that takes the original idea and then does something different.
Any other ideas?
If you’re up for remastered classics, then you should check out Forsaken Remastered.
There are also other games, such as Miner Wars 2081. Its premise is very ambitious. Think Descent, but with a huge emphasis on realism and open-world shenanigans. Sadly, the game never delivered on its promise.
There’s also the AquaNox franchise, with the last release being AquaNox: Deep Descent. If you’re up for some submarine action with that Descent vibe, you can also give it a shot, but beware, its reception has also been mixed.