Project Downfall Preview

What do you get when you mix Doom and Hotline Miami? An incredibly violent and trippy game that’s as unforgiving as it is fun. Project Downfall focuses around a man who uses the effects of various pills to his advantage as he tears apart the mobs of a corrupt European city. While the animations and physics are sometimes glitchy and the story is a bit hard to follow, this game certainly has lots of potential and was a blast to try out.

The story follows a corporate man who starts getting into shady business after he takes a seedy train line home from work, and begins getting messages instructing him to take out members of the mob, much like the story of Hotline Miami. As you carry out these deeds from the perspective of the man, the world starts to unravel, you’re apartment becomes messier, your relationship with your wife deteriorates, and you start to hallucinate. The story becomes dark very fast, but it feels very well done to me, albeit there are lots of spelling errors in the dialogue.

The gameplay is fast and unrelenting, as it only takes a bullet or two to kill the player, and the enemy’s aim is pretty accurate even on the easiest difficulty setting. Some of the levels play out more like a puzzler than a shooter, as you find yourself slowly adapting strings of actions to kill enemies in an order that deals the least damage to you while also netting you the most points. It is worth noting that the points in-game will count towards a high-score that goes onto a leaderboard that compares other player’s scores for the level, although it is unclear what nets you the most points. With the current leaderboard, you cannot view other contestant’s names or even scores, just a simple display of what place you achieved at the end of the level. The game conveys early on that the choices you make will affect events in the game, my only issue with this is that I am never sure of which choices matter. I slaughtered the gun store merchant, cops, and pharmacy salesman each time I exited my apartment but they were always there the next time I stepped out, there were some obvious choices that I could make, but I would love to know more about how to get different endings or routes in the game.

The music and sounds of Project Downfall are striking, and only add to the immersion of the game. The music is a mix between European techno and vaporwave/lofi, and the few sound effects that are currently used in the game are fitting and add to the experience. I would just hope for some more varied sounds and fixes to minor errors, like “wet” footsteps when the player is walking in dry areas.

The graphics of Project Downfall are a feat on their own, featuring a near perfect blend between 2D and 3D art, where the backgrounds and levels are three-dimensional, and the enemies/weapons are 2D sprites that always appear to face the player, similar to the graphics of Doom. While the blending of graphic styles is done well, some objects and characters could use tweaking. Sometimes enemies jitter around when killed, and there are parts of the map that the player can fall off. Sometimes there are also areas that seem to be enterable, but are just holes that the devs forgot to plug up. I’m confident that the devs will be cleaning up the animations and maps, since the game is not released yet.

Project Downfall is a wild ride, with lots of action and a great aesthetic that stays consistent between music and art-style. I really hope the developers add in some more options and locations before release, so that I can explore some more of the choices the game pushes early on. It would be great to see more variety in pills you can use, and some varying enemy AI, but I will certainly be keeping my eye on this game, and I'd recommend any fans of Hotline Miami to do the same.