Welcome to Hell... soon to be Depopulated!
Dread Templar is a fast-paced, retraux style gornfest First-Person Shooter developed by T19 Games, one that was made by a solo developer over the course of 3 years, and pays homage to old-school, gore-loaded FPS entries from the mid-90s like Doom and Quake.
You're the titular Dread Templar, a mortal and Hunter of Monsters scarier than most demons; as a child you witnessed the former Dread Templar, your grandfather who raised you, attacked by the forces of evil and dragged into the underworld, but you were curiously spared from the forces of hell. Traumatised by the ordeal, your fear, anger, and desire for revenge awakens the latent Dread energy inside you as you were rescued by the Templars whom your grandfather used to serve. Without any options, nothing else to lose, you decide to join them.
Growing up and following your grandfather's footsteps, you become the next Dread Templar, your latent Dread energy making you far more renown and dreaded by the forces of hell, easily surpassing your grandpa and making you one of the most powerful Templars.
One day, after destroying the forces of hell on earth, a portal from hell suddenly drags you to the other side, full of monsters and undead. And it turns out, there are evil forces from the underworld watching you for a long time.
To seek the truth, Hell must be explored...
- Alien Sky: Not all of hell is set indoors. The Dread Templar made it outside in a few levels, and the skies of hell are a sickly, nauseating green while filled with swirling clouds.
- Attack on the Heart: The demon Gomuramu is a gigantic heart on it's own (one covered in eyes and floating all over the place). You damage it by shooting it's heart while avoiding the lasers it summons.
- Beelzebub: An equivalent, the game's most powerful demon and Final Boss is Beeselbur II. He does resembles the Beelzebub demon as seen in Paul Bunyan's artworks, as a Winged Humanoid with fiery wings.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: The basic, most common humanoid monsters have blades grafted to their hands. An upgraded variant called "Keeper" have blades in both.
- Bullet Time: Slow Motion Time, a special move that can be activated at the cost of some of the Templar's energy, allowing him to slice and shoot with increased speed for several seconds. Onscreen mooks and projectiles all moves in slow-motion when he does so.
- Cobweb Jungle: There's a lengthy corridor leading to a cavernous cavern, most of the whole area coated in spiderwebs. And to noboy's surprise, it's where the Dread Templar battles the Queen Spider boss.
- Create Your Own Hero: Beelsebur II turns out to be the very demonic entity who killed the Dread Templar's grandfather decades ago, in order to awaken the Templar's Dread Force as a child. As the Templar grows up into a demon slayer, Beelsebur II waits for the Templar's powers to grow until reaching the desired level, where he then have the Templar dragged into the underworld so he may consume the Templar's soul. But unfortunately, the Templar turns out to be powerful enough to defeat and destroy Beelsebur II in an epic battle.
- Death from Above: A favorite attack of the bosses.
- Gomuramu alternates between causing spikes to shoot from the floor, or summoning organic laser projectors that rains a Beam Spam from above.
- On his rematch, the Hell Knight can stab his energy sword into the floor - causing projectiles to land all over the arena.
- Annorbysis will repeatedly send boulders raining into the cavern he's fought in.
- Dragged Off to Hell: This happens to the Dread Templar before the first level, and he spends the entire game searching for clues and a way out. In the final confrontation, it turns out Beelsebur II is responsible for the Templar's predicament, as well as forcing the Templar down a path of bloodshed ever since killing his grandfather decades ago.
- Dual Wielding: Your first weapon is a pair of blades that you use to swiftly chop up monsters. You can even attach them at the hilt to create a Double Weapon if you prefer.
- Evil Wizard: High Apostles, nasty Elite Mook enemies, who's one of the few human-looking enemies (save for hoods concealing their faces). They travel by power-floating all over the place while blasting you with tendrils of dark energy, and can summon purple versions of the common undead as backup.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There:
- Eyeball demons are gigantic floating eyes, with a cluster of smaller eyes attached to their sides.
- The Stitches Spider enemies, being a dissected and reassembled humanoid carcass, has a single gigantic eye on it's shoulder.
- Foul Flower: The aptly-named Corpse Flower enemies, floral life growing in hell who can shoot poisoned projectiles.
- Giant Spider: Huge arachnids infests the pits of hell, with a Spider Queen taking up an entire cavern as a boss. And then there's the Body Horror variant called the Stitches Spider - a human (or humanoid) body reassembled to create a gigantic, spider-like form (!!!).
- Guns Akimbo: Your first firearms are dual pistols, and you can obtain dual Uzis and other better weapons as the game goes on.
- Hand Blast: Hellfire Gauntlet, the Dread Templar's last weapon, a weaponized gauntlet worn on his right hand that blasts hellfire from his fists. It's also one of the most powerful ranged weapons he can collect.
- Hellfire: Most of the levels are wreathed in flames, befitting the setting in hell. You can even obtain weapons powered by hellfire technology, like the Hellfire Gauntlet and Hellfire Launcher.
- Hidden Villain: Taken to the extreme with Beelsebur II - he's your enemy since your childhood, that you don't know until the last stage when he reveals the truth behind your past and why you're in the netherworld.
- Justified Save Point: Magic Soul Portals, that preserves the souls of it's users.
- Mook Maker:
- Apostles can raise basic undead foes to attack you, and oddly enough after you killed an Apostle, the mooks he summons doesn't die - you need to fight them too.
- The Spider Queen can bombard the arena with her eggs. You could dodge them, but the eggs will just hatch into more spiders.
- The Curator can summon a type of floating demon-thing (resembling a spherical giant mouth) enemy as backup.
- Nothing but Skulls: Expect to see entire fields of skulls as a recurring scenery in hell. Heck, at one point the Dread Templar falls into a shallow pit whose floor is made of skulls.
- Power Floats: All the Apostles can float all over the place. As does the sorcerer Mini-Boss fought at Egypt's exit.
- Raised by Grandparents: Your only known relative is your grandpa in the backstory, without any mentions of you having parents.
- Recurring Boss: The Hell Knight is a demonic messenger who appears as the first boss, and bails with a We Will Meet Again taunt at the Templar when defeated. Expectedly, he keeps up to his word by returning later via a more powerful form (appropriately, in the level "You Again").
- Shaping Your Attacks:
- The Hell Knight's secondary attack in his rematch is creating a sword made from purple energy, with each swing sending dagger-shaped purple bolts on you. Annorbysis meanwhile creates a literal fire ax made of lava.
- One of the Apostle enemies (just one, strangely) can create an Energy Bow, complete with arrows made of light.
- Shifting Sand Land: Inexplicably, the last area in hell (after you defeat the Curator and exit the library) is a desert that looks like Ancient Egypt, complete with ruins filled with monsters and pyramids in the background.
- Stationary Boss:
- The Curator is confined in the middle of a pit, but can send waves of energy pillars at you. Alongside creating demons to distract you.
- Annorbysis is a fiery demon in a lava pool, but can spam fireballs and lava-axes thanks to his Playing with Fire abilities.
- Sword Beam:
- In his initial encounter, the Hell Knight swings a hefty spear capable of unleashing a spear beam. Played straighter in the rematch where he starts with his original spear but switches to a sword capable of spamming energy blades halfway.
- Beelsebur II wields a Black Sword whose hard-to-dodge blade projectile can cover half the arena. He's the powerful Final Boss, after all.
- Too Many Mouths: The Spider Queen has mouths on her face, thorax, and at least one on each shoulder of her eight gigantic limbs. She is a demonic version of a spider, after all.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: In-between levels, after defeating bosses the cutscenes will narrate your past - how you barely survive a demon attack, your grandfather's demise, you being recruited by the Templars, and so on. The last cutscene brings everything to light as Beelsebur II reveals he's the one who killed your grandpa, and why he dragged you into the underworld.
