The “boomer shooter” rise in the gaming industry has been fun to watch over the past decade, with games like Dusk, Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, and even Quake games getting remastered proving that DOOM had the winning formula from the start. There’s nothing like grabbing color-coded keys and shooting hundreds of enemies that explode in piles of gore on the way. Whenever a new game in this genre comes along, I get my eyes on it, and Beyond Sunset is no different, injecting a cyberpunk presentation. As Beyond Sunset enters Early Access in early November, is it ready to see the light of day?

When the tutorial saddled me with a katana in Beyond Sunset, I immediately thought of the recently released Ghostrunner sequel sharing the cyberpunk theme and weaponry. The difference between that ultra-hard title and this one is that I feel a lot safer holding the left mouse button down and watching my enemies get split in half with minimal effort. To add challenge to slicing through baddies like butter, Beyond Sunset saddles you against an immeasurable quantity of enemies whenever you’re locked into an arena. Most times you’ll get by with strong prioritization and a keen eye on your health, but other situations might be tougher.

The difficulty across the two Early Access episodes in Beyond Sunset is a point of contention for me. For about 90% of my playtime, I had no trouble at all breezing through enemies. But when the game locks you into an area, it spawns what feels like an unreasonable amount of bad guys before letting you free. It comes to the point where skill is moot and it’s a battle of attrition. Regardless, they weren’t impossible, and I was able to prevail after switching up my chosen weapons, remembering where health is dropped, and other survival tactics. The issue is that you cannot change difficulty mid-level, so the possibility of getting stuck is a real threat.

Past the combat, Beyond Sunset is positively immaculate in its presentation. It simultaneously evokes the 90s DOSBox feeling (there’s even a command console during startup) whilst injecting modern sensibilities like steam rising through sewer grates and a perfect draw distance, amidst plenty of video options to work on just about any setup. Tack on loading hallways and only a few soundbites for frequently-played sounds, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another boomer shooter that does such an accurate job of realizing the spirit of the games goes past just the visuals.

Despite its difficulty spikes and some nitpicks, it’s still worth checking out Beyond Sunset even in the very start of its life on Steam. Early Access means that these troubles can be paid attention to by a dedicated fanbase, and I can only hope Metacorp/Movie Games will keep a close eye. With such a strong foundation already, I can see Beyond Sunset being a cult classic when time comes for release, as I’m sure I won’t be the only one raving about how this game looks and feels after it enters Early Access on November 8th.

A PC review copy of Beyond Sunset was provided by Movie Games S.A. for the purposes of this preview.

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Beyond Sunset

$19.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Outstanding Scenery
• Wonderful Pixel Art
• Great Level Design

Cons

• Random Difficulty Spikes
• Weak Shotgun
• Too Many Enemies at Times