Where most retro FPS revivals channel Doom and Quake, Amid Evil reaches back to the dark fantasy shooters that followed in their wake. Developed by Indefatigable and published by New Blood Interactive in 2019, the game draws from Heretic and Hexen, replacing guns and demons with magical weapons and eldritch horrors. You wield a staff that fires bouncing projectiles, a trident that launches homing water spears, a sword that shoots planets, and a celestial claw that rips enemies apart with meteors. The weapons alone would make the game memorable, but the visual design pushes it further.
Community reception has been enthusiastic, particularly from players who appreciate the retro FPS revival’s more experimental entries. The visual variety across episodes, each set in a distinctly different world, is consistently praised as the game’s strongest feature. The weapon design and the soul mode mechanic, which supercharges your weapons with collected enemy souls, earn similar praise. Criticism focuses on the relatively short campaign and the lack of multiplayer, which limits replayability for players who need competitive or cooperative modes.
Worlds You’ve Never Seen Before
Each of Amid Evil’s seven episodes takes place in a different world with its own visual identity, enemy set, and atmosphere. One episode drops you into crystalline caverns where the walls refract light through gem-like structures. Another sends you through an ancient astral observatory with impossible geometry and cosmic vistas. A third places you in a flooded temple complex overrun with aquatic horrors. This level of visual variety is unusual for the genre and gives the game a sense of journey that most retro shooters, content to stay in a single aesthetic lane, can’t match.
The weapons deserve individual attention because they’re genuinely creative. The Aeturnum, a sword that fires planet-sized projectiles, is absurd and satisfying in equal measure. The Star of Torment shoots explosive projectiles that split into smaller fragments. Each weapon finds its niche against specific enemy types, and the game’s encounter design encourages rotating through your arsenal rather than relying on a single favorite. The soul mode, activated by collecting enough soul pickups from defeated enemies, temporarily transforms every weapon into an overpowered version that devastates everything in sight.
Movement feels appropriately fast and responsive. The game supports the kind of speed-strafing and bunny-hopping that retro FPS fans expect, and the level layouts are designed with that movement speed in mind. Secrets are hidden throughout, rewarding exploration without forcing it, and the scale of the environments frequently creates impressive vistas that take advantage of the fantastical settings.
A Short Spell
The campaign runs roughly six to eight hours on a first playthrough, which is standard for the genre but feels short given how much visual variety the game packs in. Each episode is distinct enough that losing one to the ending would feel like losing something unique, and by the time the final boss falls, there’s a lingering sense that the game had more worlds to show you.
Enemy variety within individual episodes can feel limited. While the roster changes between episodes, each world relies on a handful of enemy types that repeat across its levels. The variety comes from the episode transitions rather than from escalation within each one. Some episodes have more interesting enemy behaviors than others, and a couple of the mid-game worlds feature enemies that are more visually impressive than tactically challenging.
The lack of multiplayer, a feature that some retro FPS revivals include, limits the game to a solo experience. For players who extend their shooter playtime through competitive or co-op modes, Amid Evil offers only the campaign and its difficulty settings. Speedrunning and secret-hunting provide some replay incentive, but the game doesn’t have the community tools or leaderboard integration that would formalize these activities.
Fantasy Weaponry as Identity
What separates Amid Evil from the crowded retro FPS field is its commitment to the dark fantasy identity. Every design choice, from the weapon concepts to the enemy designs to the architecture, reinforces a cohesive aesthetic vision that most shooters don’t attempt. The game doesn’t just reskin conventional FPS weapons with fantasy models. It designs weapons that could only exist in a fantasy context and builds encounters around their unique properties. This thematic commitment gives the game a personality that’s hard to find in the genre.
The soul mode mechanic also adds a strategic layer that pure run-and-gun shooters lack. Collecting souls from enemies and choosing when to activate the supercharged mode creates a resource management decision that interacts with encounter design in interesting ways. Saving souls for a tough fight versus spending them to clear a current room adds tactical consideration to the moment-to-moment action.
Should You Play Amid Evil?
Dark fantasy fans who enjoy FPS games have precious few options, and Amid Evil is the best of them. Players who want visual variety and creative weapon design in their retro shooters should prioritize this. If you’ve played Dusk, Ultrakill, and the other pillars of the retro revival and want the next essential entry, Amid Evil earns its place in that lineup.
Pass if you need a long campaign or multiplayer to justify a purchase. Players who prefer grounded, military-style shooters may not connect with the abstract fantasy aesthetic. If consistent enemy variety within levels matters more to you than visual variety between them, the episode structure may feel uneven.
The Verdict on Amid Evil
Amid Evil takes the dark fantasy setting of Heretic and Hexen, pairs it with the movement and aggression of Quake, and wraps it in some of the most visually inventive environments in the retro FPS revival. Each episode feels like a different world, the weapons are creative and satisfying, and the soul mode mechanic adds a layer of empowerment that keeps the power fantasy alive. It’s shorter and less mechanically complex than some peers, but the visual ambition and level variety make every hour count.