Project Warlock 2

Hey look, it's a new boomer shooter! Hey look, another boomer shooter! Two boomer shooters within the same month! How about- PLEASE NO MORE! Oh my god, you can’t tell me these are the only types of games people want to make. You’re telling me you’re a talented game dev with a mind full of creative ideas, and this is all you can come up with? Well probably shouldn’t be saying then my favorite genre, metroidvania, has also become really oversaturated for a lot of people. That’s one way to open a review, but jokes aside I’m happy boomer shooters have been thriving lately. Goes to show there’s an audience who still like this style of shooters thirty years after the style had died. Those past ideas still have a place in today’s world. Although I’ll admit once you play six of these kinds of games you’ve seen what the entire genre has to offer. Run and gun through either claustrophobic levels, collect keys, carry ten kinds of weapons, and have a screen full of particle effects and corpses. Simple formula, but I and many other people enjoy simplicity as long as it’s done really well. Part of the reason why Shovel Knight remains one of my favorite games of all time. Anyways it’s been awhile since I’ve done full coverage for one of these kinds of games, so here’s a recent release to peak your interest, maybe. Project Warlock 2.

Sequel to the 2018 indie boomer shooter developed by Buckshot Software. The original is a title many boomer shooter fans consider underrated. It was released at an unlucky time, because two days after the 1.0 version of  Project Warlock released another boomer shooter came out. Dusk by David Szymanski, and that game is often quoted for being the kickstarter to the recent boomer shooter revival in the indie scene. Paying respect for all that came before while doing enough to forge its own personality. An even blend between blood pumping action and horror, and a great starting point for anyone wanting to get into these kinds of games. Dusk is fantastic, but it left Project Warlock in the dust. Whereas Dusk used tried and true mechanics, Project Warlock was more experimental. It did still follow the formula of exploring maze-like levels, key hunting, etc but it played more like a dungeon crawling RPG. Where you had to play carefully rather than go guns blazing. Using cover to your advantage, because you don’t know what lies behind a corner. Containing leveling systems that allowed your character and their arsenal of weapons to grow with time. Your warlock could be slightly different than someone else’s warlock, and that’s what made Project Warlock special. A blend between light RPG elements and boomer shooters.

The original Project Warlock currently sits with a very positive rating on Steam. Meaning it falls into the small percentage of boomer shooters that are actually good. I think it deserves the praise, but to be honest I wasn’t a very big fan. I played the game last year and bounced off from what it had to offer. The level design was tight, but limited the room I had to work with when dealing with enemies. The RPG elements felt a bit tacked on, and the game lacked the satisfying feel a lot of other boomer shooters had. Where Dusk and Forgive Me Father has you thumping through each level. Firing weighty shots and stomping along battlegrounds Project Warlock felt weird. It felt like an ice skater firing BB guns, and that’s not a good feeling in my opinion. I respect what it was trying to do and hoped any future projects by the developer would improve. For the last few years Buckshot Software had been working on Project Warlock 2. A sequel they probably were hoping would improve problems the first game had and expand the horizons for what their new franchise could bring. Be more like the popular boomer shooters in the market now, and I’d say they did just that. Project Warlock 2 is more inline with other boomer shooters out there, but differentiating itself from the original is what brought a lot of mixed reactions from fans.

Compared to the original game which has a very positive rating on Steam, the sequel is currently with an okay rating. Better than a majority of games out there, but it does raise some eyebrows. About the audience they were trying to appease with Project Warlock 2. Some complain it fell a bit too in line with other boomer shooters. Others complain about the bugs and despite spending a good enough time in the early access period Buckshot Software failed to address any bugs and complaints brought. Releasing an unfinished sequel to a game that contained a lot of polish back in 2018. A lot of these criticisms are quite fair. The bugs and constant framerate drops can limit how much enjoyment one has with a game. My expectations were low with Project Warlock 2. I did not love the original and expected this one to be equally okay. You’ll be absolutely shocked by what I’m about to say. I think Project Warlock 2 is great! It might even be one of my favorite boomer shooters in recent memory. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece or on the same level as Dusk or Cultic. However, it’s the most fun I had with an indie shooter in a while and I hope more folks will give a whirl once the devs iron out the bugs. Today we’ll be talking about Project Warlock 2 and why it deserves your attention. Nothing but three magical killers and their army of guns.

Story

Rather than follow one singular hero in Project Warlock 2 we follow three. From what I can pick up through hints and a lore note, the protagonist of the original Project Warlock got old and tired of hunting demons. His bones had gotten weak from traveling across time and space, so he gathered a bunch of disciples to train. A new generation of warlocks to carry out his work and protect the world more easily. Now his successors are traveling the universe on their own. Seeing where evil lurks, nailing it down to the root, and burning the root away so it can no longer spread any further. In the first chapter we follow Palmer as he blasts his way through a kingdom full of mechanized demons. Chapter two follows Urd as she journeys to the wild west to locate a worm deep beneath the surface. The third chapter follows Kirsten who unlike the other two warlocks is not human and rides into space to fight evil aliens and cosmic horrors. These three warlocks are the only thing balancing peace in the universe. Only they can stop the chaos and corruption. All it takes is one bullet at a time. From heart, to lung, to brain, and head. Guns galore.

Gameplay

So the story of Project Warlock 2 isn’t much as with any boomer shooter. The gameplay is where the true meat lies, and that meat is delicious. You accumulate weapons, navigate stages, fight an array of enemies, and try to reach the exit. You have a health bar and a shield bar. The latter may block some damage that would regularly go to your health bar. Both are refilled by picking up items lying on the ground, and if the health bar runs out then mostly you are dead and it’s game over. Load up a previous save to continue where you once were. There is a wide array of guns to use in Project Warlock. Whipping the right one out at the right time may let dealing with specific enemies more easily. Cannon fodder enemies who are weak, but come in large hordes. Maybe it’s the giant bears throwing rocks at you or charging in your direction. What’s essentially a cyberdemon firing rockets from afar. There are Shamblers. The same exact Shamblers you encountered in Quake who can charge up lighting and fire it within less than one second. Guns include assault rifles, shotguns, explosives, staff, cannons, and the list of weapons go on.

Each character is unique in that they have their own guns and powers to use. Palmer can summon a copy of the weapon he’s currently using and dual wield them. He also has elemental spells such as fire and ice. Urd uses poison and crystal spells, and Kirsten can summon weapons and demons from the underworld. Returning from the original game is the workshop, and you’ll be stopping here a lot in between missions. As you kill enemies or pick up treasure throughout levels you’ll gain experience points. You also may just find upgrade tokens scattered about. These are spent at your base to unlock new guns and upgrade current abilities. Gun upgrades are unique in that they will transform a current weapon you have into something else. Let’s take Palmer’s assault rifle for instance. He can exchange it for a semi-automatic rifle which fires three bullets each pull of the trigger, is more precise, and good for long range. However, once he unlocks this he cannot swap back to the previous rifle he had nor opt out for the second choice. It’s important to save often and think about choices carefully, because you might not know what will benefit your style of play more during a single playthrough. Aside from that you have stats, and these go up as you level up and find stat points. Stats include maximum health, mana, how much ammo you can carry, or the effectiveness of your spells. Your warlock may be different from another person so level up accordingly. Aside from that there’s nothing else to really say. It’s what you expect from a boomer shooter but with RPG mechanics, and that’s okay.

Thoughts

Project Warlock 2 differentiates itself quite a bit from the original and some may be conflicted on how it’s like a majority of boomer shooters out now. It’s not the claustrophobic decisive play the first game pursued. It’s action heavy, guns blazing all the time, and contains levels similar to the ones seen in titles like Dusk and Forgive Me Father. It’s more of a traditional boomer shooter and fans of the original may not like this. I acknowledge this sentiment as a lot of games tend to lose their identity when transitioning to different styles of play. However, this is a style of play I prefer more from these kinds of games and I believe Project Warlock 2 knocks it out of the park when it comes to this. It’s a very good time and it has easily become one of my top ten indie FPS games now. I want this review to mainly be about Project Warlock 2, but I also want it to be an exploration as to why I didn’t love the original as much as everybody else. The caveats that came with its design and how the sequel became better. This is a defense of Project Warlock 2. I don’t want to gloss over the game, but I want people to realize how well it’s doing what it’s trying to do, and the negative reception on Steam isn’t quite fair to the product on display.

Let’s start off with the level design. The original Project Warlock had extremely tight levels. The  stages were mazes rather than open battlefields you zoom around. You’re never able to see what is up ahead, so you have to play carefully. Slowly peek out of cover, identify what it is, and know how to deal with it as more often than not being uncareful is what gets you killed easily. This is also accommodated by one of the original game’s most daring design choices, a continue system. Depending on the difficulty you are playing on you will be given numbered continues in a stage. A stage in Project Warlock was not one continuous level but multiple smaller levels. Imagine it as a roguelike if you will. Your goal is to get to the end of the last stage without dying, and if you run out of lives before doing so you’re kicked back to homebase. You’re forced to do the stage from square one, but maybe this time it’ll be different. You may have upgrade points and these can be spent to make your character stronger. To make the level you’re stuck on easier, and I can see where they’re going with this. That blending of old school FPS design and RPG mechanics being mashed together. Good ideas on paper, but in execution it’s a bit frustrating. 

You’re being dropped into cramp stages that give you very little room to work with. You control a character who moves quickly like a majority of boomer shooter heroes, and if you’re gonna do that you might want to have good arena design. Space that allows the player to quickly adapt, change their approach, and keep the pace going despite what is happening. It’s much harder to do this within cramped spaces, and while the limitations created by the cramped spaces can create cool gameplay scenarios like using the terrain to your advantage I can’t find myself finding these bits and moments often. Getting killed by a horde of enemies or powerful foe because I couldn’t see them in time or because they popped out from a hidden wall sucks. You may argue titles like Dark Souls do this, but in Dark Souls at least you have more sensual awareness due to a third person camera and view of an entire area. That and no matter how many times you die you could still go on. The live system limits this in Project Warlock, because now instead of playing it like a decisive first person shooter I’m playing in fear. In fear of what may kill me next if I’m careful. Not the feeling you want for a game trying to be an action heavy boomer shooter.

Project Warlock 2 goes against this by having more open arenas. Breathing room to over run and gun the chaos around you. Some people might not like this, but I prefer this because now I have more even ground. Arenas are quite varied in this game and unlike the original there’s a lot more verticality. Another thing I didn’t like about Project Warlock was how flat levels were, which is weird considering your character could look around freely. Project Warlock 2 has more vertical level design and arenas, which is great. There’s flying enemies, advantage points certain enemies like those sniper demons may be placed at, and you have to always be on your toes. The game has great enemy variety to force you to switch between guns often. I’m not a very big fan of gun switching in shooters. Never used it in Doom Eternal as I always used guns as I may. This time I found myself using it more often, and I had fun doing so. Juggling my tools and seeing what cool tricks I can pull off. Weapons even automatically reload themselves when switching. Nice as it allows you to keep up the pace. The weapon upgrade system from the original is still pretty fun, and I found more of the weapons here exciting to use than the original. I still hate how the first game had a ricochet assault rifle with bullets that can hurt you. One of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a shooter. Here you can wield a super shotgun, automatic shotgun, revolver, magnum, grenade launcher, magical throwing knives, laser cannon, crossbows, and much more. There’s one gun that’s basically a rapid fire flaming shotgun, and I f*cking love it!

I love how each of the three characters are different from one another. Pulling a Dishonored 2 in that you have to account for their different arsenal of tools. Their abilities and how to use them for maximum benefit. I like their character portraits too, they are very charming. Although RPG elements could still feel a bit better I think there’s better handling here. There's a lot of upgrade points put throughout levels, and it encourages you to explore. Interact with secrets or loot all you can find. I don’t often explore in boomer shooters because the reward for doing so is useless most of the time. Here it actually is, which is great! The art direction has gotten a bit of a glow up since the first game. The first was already pretty stylized, but here it really pops out. I love where the game takes you. First you start off in a medieval fantasy kingdom, but next you find yourself in the wild west. With cowboy towns, ancient tombs, and tribes lying deep in the world. Then you’re in space and you’re blasting your way through space stations. Hoping through all sorts of lovecraftian dimensions and horrors. It’s colorful and enthralling which is something more boomer shooters should embrace rather than be dark, mechanical, and dull.

Okay, so it looks like I have been glazing over this game a bit too much so it’s about time I offer some counterbalance critiques. As much as I love the high octane action and chaos on screen I think it can be a bit too much at times. Framerate tanks whenever there’s too much on screen and it can be difficult to read the room when there’s 30 dudes on mass running towards where you’re at. Framerate is made even worse when the game’s characters are a mesh between 3D models and pixel art. Part of me understands why a common complaint with Project Warlock 2 is how it performs. You have all this stuff happening combined with the colorful and expansive levels. As much as I love the level design I’m not exactly sure how well each stage is accounted for. Some I beat without collecting all the keys. Then you start comparing the length of each episode. The first one took me three hours to beat, and episode two is the same. However, I felt some levels in the second episode went on much longer than they should’ve. Not in an annoying way, but you see it. Then there’s episode three and that one ends way too soon. A majority of levels in episode three are eight minutes max with one only taking me two to beat. The end of a game is usually when the devs run out of money, and it really shows here with level length.

The soundtrack bounces back and forth between being absolutely awesome and a bit too tame for my liking. With music that doesn't match exactly where you are or what is happening. Perks and spell upgrades are kinda bad compared to everything else, and despite how cool of a premise this game has it never builds upon it. Boomer shooters are known for having little to no plotlines, so I should have expected that. Again, it’s the bugs and performance which are the game’s biggest issues, but I’m sure one year from now Project Warlock 2 will be in a much better state. Overall I really love this game. It was much better than I was expecting it to be, and it alongside both of the Forgive Me Father games may have hyped my love for these kinds of shooters. I am eager to check out more of them and see what they have to offer. I strongly recommend this game to any boomer shooter fan out there. In the end I give Project Warlock 2 a 9/10 for excellence at best.