TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,965
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
The sequel to Sprawl parties like it's 2004.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Indie gaming has spent the last decade slowly working its way through the visual and mechanical styles of yore, starting with 2D pixel platformers before moving to boomer shooters and then PS1-era horror games. As such, it was only a matter of time before they began gazing lasciviously at early noughties blockbusters. I was only chatting to someone the other day about when we'd see our first retro shooter either running in or inspired by the Source engine.
It turns out the answer to that was "today." Sprawl Zero is a newly announced FPS that cites games like Halo: Combat Evolved, FEAR, and Half-Life 2 as inspirations. It features time manipulation, gravity manipulation, and graphics so sepia you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a Hollywood film depicting a Middle Eastern country. Move over, boomer shooters, the Millennial shooter has arrived!
Sprawl Zero is actually a sequel (or some kind of follow-up) to 2023's Sprawl, which likewise had the look of a post-2000 shooter, but was inspired specifically by Quake. Zero, on the other hand, directly invokes the era when the FPS began to proliferate on consoles, and when "the genre evolved from shooting in corridors to building worlds."
You play as a cybernetically enhanced super soldier (what else?) called Five, tasked with eliminating the leader of a "techno-religious group" named Imago-Dei. Combat is designed to be fast paced, but less hyper-twitchy than the more extreme end of the boomer shooter brigade. Developer MAETH points to FEAR and Halo as main points of reference for Sprawl's feel, aiming to represent your character's weight and physicality alongside raw speed.
Bungie and Monolith are inspirations in another area too—enemy AI. Sprawl Zero's Steam page claims that "enemy squads will communicate and coordinate to wrestle the advantage" using tactics like flanking and grenades to keep you on your toes.
There's a fair amount of Half-Life 2 in Spawl Zero too. The most obvious touchstone is the ability to manipulate objects and enemies with gravity gloves. But the game also has a ramshackle industrial vibe that looks very City 17, and there's a helicopter enemy reminiscent of HL2's combine gunship.
The big question is whether MAETH can forge this collection of inspirations into something that feels coherent. The retro shooters of the last decade ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Indie gaming has spent the last decade slowly working its way through the visual and mechanical styles of yore, starting with 2D pixel platformers before moving to boomer shooters and then PS1-era horror games. As such, it was only a matter of time before they began gazing lasciviously at early noughties blockbusters. I was only chatting to someone the other day about when we'd see our first retro shooter either running in or inspired by the Source engine.
It turns out the answer to that was "today." Sprawl Zero is a newly announced FPS that cites games like Halo: Combat Evolved, FEAR, and Half-Life 2 as inspirations. It features time manipulation, gravity manipulation, and graphics so sepia you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a Hollywood film depicting a Middle Eastern country. Move over, boomer shooters, the Millennial shooter has arrived!
Sprawl Zero is actually a sequel (or some kind of follow-up) to 2023's Sprawl, which likewise had the look of a post-2000 shooter, but was inspired specifically by Quake. Zero, on the other hand, directly invokes the era when the FPS began to proliferate on consoles, and when "the genre evolved from shooting in corridors to building worlds."
You play as a cybernetically enhanced super soldier (what else?) called Five, tasked with eliminating the leader of a "techno-religious group" named Imago-Dei. Combat is designed to be fast paced, but less hyper-twitchy than the more extreme end of the boomer shooter brigade. Developer MAETH points to FEAR and Halo as main points of reference for Sprawl's feel, aiming to represent your character's weight and physicality alongside raw speed.
Bungie and Monolith are inspirations in another area too—enemy AI. Sprawl Zero's Steam page claims that "enemy squads will communicate and coordinate to wrestle the advantage" using tactics like flanking and grenades to keep you on your toes.
There's a fair amount of Half-Life 2 in Spawl Zero too. The most obvious touchstone is the ability to manipulate objects and enemies with gravity gloves. But the game also has a ramshackle industrial vibe that looks very City 17, and there's a helicopter enemy reminiscent of HL2's combine gunship.
The big question is whether MAETH can forge this collection of inspirations into something that feels coherent. The retro shooters of the last decade ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?