Beyond Sunset

3/10 Had a lot of promise but ended up being a frustrating mess of some good ideas done poorly, some ill conceived set pieces and a frankly stupid plot. Plus loses points for some laziness and stupidity. No cheevos? Lazy! Putting the invert Y axis in the advanced options, which has a big warning on it before accessing? Stupid! Shame, as the weapons are satisfying, the enemies look good, aesthetic and music is amazing. But, this is hampered by the fact it doesn't know what it wants to be which leads to bad pacing. Is it a boomer shooter? Is it an immersive sim? Final nails in the coffin are the bad level design, erratic difficulty and the crappy hacking sections. Don't bother.

Beyond Sunset is an impressive fusion of retro-inspired first-person shooter gameplay and modern role-playing mechanics that delivers an exciting cyberpunk adventure without losing sight of its old-school roots. Developed by Metacorp and Vaporware and published by Movie Games S.A., the game follows Lucy, a cybernetically enhanced mercenary struggling to recover fragments of her forgotten past while surviving the dangers of Sunset City. The premise provides enough mystery to drive the story forward, while the dystopian setting offers an engaging backdrop filled with crime syndicates, powerful corporations, and advanced technology that perfectly complements the game's fast-paced action. The world itself is one of Beyond Sunset's greatest achievements. Sunset City feels alive with towering neon-lit buildings, grimy back alleys, bustling districts, and futuristic architecture that successfully captures the atmosphere of classic cyberpunk fiction. Exploration is rewarded throughout the campaign, encouraging players to venture away from the main objective to uncover hidden locations, useful equipment, optional quests, and pieces of lore that deepen the game's narrative. Rather than simply moving from one firefight to another, players are given opportunities to interact with the environment and discover additional content that makes the city feel more believable and immersive. Combat embraces the philosophy of classic shooters by emphasizing speed, mobility, and aggressive play while introducing enough modern mechanics to keep encounters fresh. Players gain access to a varied arsenal that supports different combat strategies, whether they prefer close-range destruction, long-range precision, or overwhelming enemies with heavy firepower. Opponents range from armed gang members and cybernetic soldiers to robotic enemies and powerful bosses, each requiring players to adapt their tactics instead of relying on a single weapon throughout the adventure. Smooth movement and responsive controls make every encounter enjoyable, especially as Lucy becomes stronger through character progression. One of the game's standout features is its RPG progression system, which gives players meaningful ways to customize Lucy's abilities. Experience gained throughout the campaign unlocks upgrades that improve combat effectiveness, survivability, and specialized skills, allowing players to tailor their preferred playstyle. These progression mechanics blend naturally with the shooter gameplay, ensuring that character growth feels rewarding without slowing down the action. Side missions, conversations with non-player characters, and optional objectives further expand the experience by providing additional rewards and context for the world surrounding Lucy's journey. Visually, Beyond Sunset successfully combines retro aesthetics with modern graphical enhancements. Character sprites maintain a nostalgic appearance while advanced lighting, colorful visual effects, and highly detailed environments create an attractive cyberpunk presentation. The game's synthwave-inspired soundtrack complements every moment, delivering energetic music during combat and atmospheric tracks while exploring the city. Together, the visuals and audio establish a memorable identity that consistently reinforces the game's futuristic setting and keeps players immersed from beginning to end. Level design deserves praise for encouraging exploration without sacrificing pacing. Many stages contain branching paths, hidden rooms, secret collectibles, and alternate routes that reward observant players. These optional discoveries provide valuable upgrades and additional story details, making exploration feel worthwhile rather than mandatory. The variety of environments also prevents the adventure from becoming repetitive, with each area introducing fresh challenges and visual themes that maintain player interest across the campaign. Despite its strengths, the game has a few shortcomings. Players expecting a nonstop action experience similar to traditional retro shooters may find the RPG systems, exploration, and dialogue sequences interrupting the momentum at times. Certain boss encounters also introduce noticeable difficulty spikes that demand careful movement and resource management, which may frustrate less experienced players. Additionally, while the retro-inspired engine contributes greatly to the game's distinctive style, some animations and technical elements occasionally reveal limitations compared to larger-budget modern first-person shooters. Even with these minor issues, Beyond Sunset stands out as one of the more creative entries in the growing library of retro-inspired FPS games. Instead of relying solely on nostalgia, it successfully incorporates meaningful role-playing mechanics, engaging exploration, strong world-building, and an intriguing narrative into its classic shooter foundation. The result is a polished cyberpunk adventure that offers satisfying combat, rewarding progression, and an unforgettable atmosphere. Fans of old-school first-person shooters, cyberpunk settings, and RPG elements will find plenty to appreciate throughout Lucy's journey. Rating: 7/10

If someone was to create a demake of the OG Deus Ex, I expect it would play and feel a lot like Beyond Sunset. It feels like playing SNES and watching Blade Runner for the first time, at the same time. I love everything about it.

I have played this game for about 15 minutes before I got fed up with it. Every single enemy encounter so far has been an ambush in the sense that the game simply spawns between 10 and 20 enemies around you that attack you from all sides in a room without any cover. No thanks.

it moves VERY FAST. smooth controls. I like the style. yes, Boltgun, doom vibes but all in a good way. or Shadow Warrior. solid game. i wonder if it's gonna be about 5 hours?>?

It's an OK Doom clone. But the levels are not that interesting. It's annoying that many enemies use AOE explosions, and this really caps the skill of dodging attacks, in my opinion. And at the end, the last boss fight is again full of AOE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and spongy as hell out of nowhere. So, it's ok, but there are much better ones out there. 

This game isn't perfect but the vibes are immaculate, and it brings a degree of friction missing from most new boomshoots. Looking at the reviews here, I feel like this game really doesn't get the love it deserves. If you like Blade Runner, boom shoots, and or Perfect Dark like I do, I think this game will really connect for you.

Beyond Sunset, beautiful design and world building, mostly fun combat and exploration. Context: Completed the games once on normal difficulty, took about 9.5 hours. Generally enjoy boomer shooters. - Ultimately I enjoyed it. Would recommend to others who enjoy zDoom based games. - If you have tried zDoom based games before and found them rough, this offering will not change your mind. - Getting to the end is little rough, and isn't without some frustration. The are 5 levels, each made up of different connected maps, and each with its own distinct theme and feeling. Its a shoot shoot through out, but different quirks add flavor to the different levels. Zones are beautifully designed and detailed. It is also impressively vertical for this engine. All creating a fun world to world to explore start to end. There also felt an like appropriate amount of enemy variation. Some are reused quite heavily, or given slight upgrades, but arenas never felt boring to fight. My main two gripes coming out of the game relate to navigation and economy. -Navigation: The game does use the doom automap, however this is not always the most intuitive and this is complicated further by the detail and verticality of the levels. The amount of looping back and key doors to move on was fun, but created moments of 'where do I go now.' I do appreciate being allowed to explore and not yellow-ledged through out the whole game, however there were more lost moments that I would like. -Economy: there is a tight balance of health and ammo here. Picks up are placed in world, but are limited and do not respawn. To supplement this the game uses a doom eternal style system where certain damage causes enemies to drop ammo and health. Here, use of this sweep system is limited by a charge that is also based on kills. I ran into many situations where I was low on ammo, could use the sweep ability to get more.. but I would blow through that stock before recharging the sweep to able to continue. You can use the low tier melee and pistol for free, but these do little to larger enemies. Ultimately leading to grindy situations where I peaked corners with a pistol trying clear out enemies, rather than pushing forward. Again, it was fun. Well worth the cost, and didn't overstay. Those lost moments (literal, where do I go... and metaphorical, I don't have the ammo for this fight...) just came up a bit more often than I would like.

Quelle déception! Au départ, tout se déroulait bien, mais avec autant d'ennemis, cela devient ridicule. Vous sautez dans tous les sens jusqu'à choper la gerbe! Je conseille uniquement à ceux qui aiment souffrir et attendre que ça passe.

Holding right click makes you invincible and lets you deflect bullets back at the enemies. Almost every encounter in the time I've played can be beaten by standing in place and holding the deflect button. Bizarre lack of any semblance of challenge.