WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is banking on nostalgia. That’s not me making a point, even the Steam description nods towards the original Quake. Hell, it’s built on a modified version of the same engine. It’s slightly awkward for me, because I have no nostalgia for the original Quake. I’ve got a little bit for Quake II and a small slice for DOOM, but Quake? No dice.
So WRATH (I’m going to drop the silly subtitle for the moment) started on the back foot somewhat. Well, that and the fact that it slid on to early access back in 2019. That’s quite the lengthy cooking time. Still, WRATH has done a lot to bounce back. I’m going to bring up my usual list of complaints but let me say this up front: killing things in WRATH: Aeon of Ruin feels really, really good.
Stop Worrying And Love The Knife
It took a little while to click with me, though. I was about a quarter of the way through the game, and I was running out of ammo for pretty much everything. It made every fight doubly stressful. Particularly ones that involved those bloody floating, four-faced things. After a pitched battle with a handful of these lads, I got annoyed and just brought out the knife. I lunged at one of the floaty buggers in frustration and it promptly exploded into gibs. Turns out the knife isn’t just for breaking pots. It can one-hit kill most enemies. Risky to use, but if you’ve got more health than ammo, you might as well throw yourself at the enemies instead.
This made the combat a lot more enjoyable to me. WRATH is a lot of fun when it’s just letting its combat breathe. That brings me to my standard litmus test for shooters: the shotgun. If the shotgun feels and sounds good, then you’ve probably got a good combat system on your hands. WRATH‘s shotgun made my ear drums rattle and turned everything in front of me into clouds of gore. There isn’t a damp squib amongst the guns, actually. Even the special energy laser has an alternate mode that turns enemies into solid lumps of crystal. They’re fun to use and interesting to boot, even down to the knife.
Vitally, I found myself using every single gun available and not just because I ran out of ammo. That’s good design. Still, the other half of good combat are the things you’re shooting at. Enemy design is pretty solid. For one, they look gross. The standard ranged lad has one shotgun hand, one knife hand and a bunch of actual hands instead of a collarbone. It’s wonderfully horrific. They all fit into their niches too. Ranged ones to keep you moving, melee ones to keep you focused, the giant vomiting things to make sure you’re watching your feet and the giant flying, face guys to keep your blood pressure sky-high. The second-by-second combat is good fun.
Beyond Saving
There’s also a whole lot of it. WRATH has three hub worlds, with five levels apiece. These levels can last up to an hour each (depending on how often you die), so there’s quite a lot of content on display here. It layers the weapons and enemies throughout the progression, so it does keep things interesting to a point. The BFG is even a melee weapon, which is nice. I did feel like some of the tricks get repeated though. The usual ’90s shooter-esque key hunts are a big factor here and picking up a key always spawns in new enemies. So when you see one, you just sigh and get it over with. WRATH almost gets DOOM 3-esque at times, with its obsession with spawning in enemies every time there’s a break.
On top of that minor gripe, I have two major ones. Let’s start with the one that didn’t make me quite as angry: the level design. For the most part, it’s pretty good. Each level feels roughly distinct, with its own gimmicks. Some are more welcome than others – any level that had parkour was always a miss, as our hero forgot to take off his rollerskates. The biggest issue is that the fairly murky graphics make it hard to figure out where you’re supposed to go next. I was constantly getting lost and accidentally backtracking, which wasn’t helped by the levels in each zone looking pretty similar.
But let’s get to my biggest, angriest gripe: the limited save system. Let me drop my usual casual hyperbole and speak plainly: I hate this system. See, quick saves are a pick up. If you run out, you can only save at set checkpoints. This is annoying for a few reasons. First, it assumes we have no lives outside of the game and punishes up for having one. Second, it means that we have to be hesitant about saving and as we’re not clairvoyant, we’ll often save in poor places. Just let me quicksave! Losing a ton of progress after a tough fight is nail-bitingly frustrating. During the insta-kill parkour sections, I was chomping through to my metacarpal.
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin – Worth The Wait?
The save system damn near killed WRATH for me. Still, something kept me coming back. Probably wasn’t the plot, which is told in a series of cryptic statements by a four-eyed bloke, who looks like he had a run-in with Tom Sawyer. No, it was the combat that kept me coming back. The boss fights proved that. Three fights against things far bigger and scarier than me. The final boss fight was excellent, combining all the threats we’d encountered previously into one giant arena. Absolutely insane and good fun all around.
I guess the only question that’s left to broach is whether WRATH: Aeon of Ruin was worth the wait. I’m probably not the best person to answer that question; I only really heard about the game last week. Still, if you have been hanging on for four and a bit years, then you’ll be pleased to know that WRATH has turned out to be an enjoyable old-school shooter, with great guns and exciting enemies. The save system is a fundamental misstep, but the shotgun will drag you back in, kicking and screaming.
