Dread Templar Review

While I'm always excited to try out the next new, innovative game on the market, sometimes all you need for enjoyment is a game that's simple and to the point. Dread Templar isn't going to knock your socks off with revolutionary gameplay or cutting-edge technology, but it sets out and succeeds to make an action-packed experience with little downtime in between battles. This boomer shooter is metal as hell and rarely gives you a second to breathe, meaning it's just the type of FPS for me.

Dread Templar is a boomer shooter by T19 Games and published by Fulqrum Publishing. You take control of the, well, Dread Templar, and slash and shoot your way across five episodes. I described it as "taking badass to the next level" during its Early Access phase, and it certainly remains that way in the final release.

Taking on Hordes of Demons in Dread Templar

Changes from my time during Early Access include far more content with new enemies, episodes, weapons, and quality of life changes. Surprisingly, Dread Templar also features a story, but to quickly address this, it's nothing to pay attention to at all. In fact, Dread Templar really doesn't need a story to justify the relentless horde of demons that scuttle after the hero. In between episodes are short cutscenes explaining the narrative, but this adds pretty much nothing to the experience. Just a heads-up, some FPS players like some story in their games -- well, maybe look elsewhere.

What is worth noting is the overall feel and gunplay of Dread Templar. Every weapon, from your duel pistols to gauntlets that shoot out giant killer beams, feels substantial and exceedingly powerful. Enemies don't have a great deal of health on normal but still pose a challenge with projectiles or just getting overrun by sheer numbers. Because of the low health pool, weapons cut through these baddies easily and result in spouts of blood and gore. I'm all about weapon "feel" in my shooters, and Dread Templar nails it.

Weapon variety was impressive in Early Access and continues to impress with a few more added to the roster. Notably, I enjoyed using a rocket launcher that shoots several projectiles at once, covering a wide area. Another new weapon was a gauntlet that, when holding down primary fire, basically disintegrated enemies. These are all exceedingly fun, and so too are the upgrades you use. Dread Templar features an upgrade system where you can find new abilities to slot into your character as you go through levels. You'll need to spend a currency to unlock these abilities, giving heavy incentive to explore levels rather than complete them as fast as possible. The results of your exploration are usually fruitful and lead to cool new variations of previously used weapons.

The double-barreled shotgun, for example, transforms into this demonic weapon that shoots out wide beams and tears through enemies. My favorite upgrade increased the firepower of my bow and arrow weapon, allowing each subsequent hit to do more damage than the last. Dread Templar comes close to emulating the brutality of Doom's main hero, meaning this is a wonderful power trip for those looking to just rip and tear.

Dread Templar is not without some flaws, however. Most notably, the absence of a weapon wheel. There are quite a few weapons and you'll either have to press the corresponding number bound to your weapon or use the mouse wheel. Some weapons also share the same slot, so by right-clicking, you can pull out the second weapon in that slot. A weapon wheel would make combat a lot smoother, faster, and add to your efficiency. It can be frustrating to remember which number corresponds to which weapon, and consequently, I would sometimes pick the wrong gun to use in battle.

If a proper weapon wheel were to be added, I would also hope for a better-looking user interface. In its current state, Dread Templar's UI feels lazy and uncreative. The numbers for ammo count as well as for health and armor seem bland. There's a lot of room for creativity here and, while this seems nitpicky, the rest of the game looks so good, so the UI stands out. The pause screen and options menu, especially, screams of low effort and detracts from what is a quality game visually.

Dread Templar | Final Thoughts

The visuals are excellent in Dread Templar and pay homage to 90s shooters like Quake. Though Dread Templar's theme remains dark and bleak throughout its five episodes, there are quite a few decently creative levels here. Some environments have a dark fantasy type of feel to them, though the final two episodes feel more apocalyptic than anything else. Visuals aside, the overall layout of levels is usually quite impressive, with layers of verticality and plenty of secrets hidden away in different corners.

I definitely enjoyed the first three episodes of Dread Templar more than the last two, though. It seems like Dread Templar is front-loaded with more creative levels and visual design in the beginning and middle. The final two episodes dragged on a bit and felt too familiar; and frankly, the final boss and its arena were a bit underwhelming compared to the rest of the Dread Templar's offerings.

But of course, I still deeply enjoyed Dread Templar. It's just a rock-solid shooter with a few flaws, but nothing that detracts from the fun too much. Certainly, boomer shooter fans are eating good these past few years and they ought to add Dread Templar to their plate. At the end of the day, most boomer shooter fans want to shoot some demons in the face, so get ready to feast.

TechRaptor reviewed Dread Templar on Steam with a key provided by the publisher.