To tell the truth, the resemblance of Project Warlock with its famous model is more than obvious: it is completely assumed. And above all, it is literally a childhood dream! For this, we must not go back very far, only a few years, when the young Polish Jakub Cislo took it into his head to create his own video game. One thing leading to another, after a first crowdfunding and hard work, the student aged only 18 was able to form his own small team and then count on the help of a publisher, Gaming Company: the game will be released finally in 2018 on PC… and only now on home consoles. Project Warlock is not entirely new, therefore, but its arrival on PS4, Xbox One and Switch allows it to gain enormously in visibility. To tell the truth, it is rather deserved when you know his obstacle course.
HELLBOY
The concept of Project Warlock couldn't be simpler: it's about crossing levels while exploding any creature that stands in your way. We then embody a warlock (a “warlock” in French) devoid of name or personality, except that he has a deep hatred for the forces of Hell and that he particularly likes to take life. For the rest of the writing, we will go back: the only narration present revolves around small written reports, available after each boss killed. It's totally succinct but that's not the goal, the interest of the software being clearly based on the skill with a terribly old-shool requirement. Here, no quick save and if you lose all of your lives (you can find some hidden in the levels), it's back to square one. Fortunately, a more lax mode is also available, forcing you to "only" restart the last level in the event of a defeat. Suffice to say that the lifespan depends entirely on your performance and can then range from a handful of hours, three or four only, to eight or nine for a first run.
IT WAS BETTER BEFORE
Our dear devil hunter is therefore a solitary person but, fortunately, rather comfortable in the discipline of combat. A total of 9 weapons are available - a pistol, a sawed-off shotgun, a crossbow, a shotgun, a gatling, a flamethrower or even a kind of BFG 9000 - which you will have to gradually recover... and improve. Because where Project Warlock differs somewhat from DOOM, it is in its little RPG side that it likes to highlight: we climb in level as we kill and treasure recovered everywhere, we collect improvement points and then go to the den of the warlock, which serves here as a small hub between each world, to improve his character. The progression of Project Warlock is honestly well mastered: each gun has two evolutions radically changing its use, passive abilities can be unlocked and other classic elements - the gauge of life, force, mana or ammo capacity - can expand. The icing on the cake, it is even possible to buy magic spells to consolidate an already solid gameplay: these can have very different effects from each other, such as a ball of electricity or the creation of ammunition, and then bring a certain tactic during trying fights. Needless to say, these mechanics are complete in addition to being easily understandable: it is a question of efficiency, not necessarily of originality. 
ONE BRAIN AND MANY MUSCLE
The great strength of old-school games undeniably resided in the architecture of their levels: very clearly, you had to rack your brains to get from point A to point B, discover and assimilate every corner while being rigorous enough to stay alive. Project Warlock takes up these same cogs with five worlds, each composed of five sections and a boss, which will have to be tamed wisely. As the rule requires, finding the red, yellow, or blue key to open the corresponding doors is still relevant, as are secret areas housing valuable resources. However, and even if it is far from the linearity that many games have been criticized for in recent years, the level design is perhaps less worked, less sadistic than those of the great classics could be. of the kind. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since everything remains labyrinthine, and lovers of dark narrow corridors should be delighted.
For once, and even if the will of the small Polish team of Buckshot Software is to offer an “old-fashioned” experience, the whole adventure here is built on Unity. A recent 3D engine, known for its flexibility and adaptability, whose in-game rendering is quite satisfactory: it must be said that mastering sprites, animations and other 90s-style textures is done rather well and can then enjoy other more modern effects, such as honest light management or large numbers of particles, while keeping a perfect fluidity of action. The feeling of playing a mod-boosted DOOM is real, and incorporating these little technical details today pays off. For once, it's rather the artistic direction that turns out to be quite classic: although the worlds all deal with different themes - the medieval, the snow, the laboratories, the city or the hell - there is nothing very original on the horizon and the colors are, overall, quite dull, even downright sad. On the other hand, the audio work is a nice surprise with a rather complete OST and many musics, bringing a personality on many levels. The least we can say is that Project Warlock is on the whole a successful experience, certainly not original but which pulls on the right strings and which knows perfectly well where it is going. A powerful DOOM-like and undoubtedly a nice breath of fresh air in the middle of a year with multiple and time-consuming AAAs.
