Prodeus is a retro-inspired First-Person Shooter developed by Bounding Box Software (led by former members of Raven Software and Starbreeze Studios) and published by Humble Games. The game was released in Early Access on Steam and GOG on November 2020. The game came out of Early Access into a full release on September 23rd, 2022.
A new mini-campaign, Prodeus: The Elder Veil, was announced to be in development on September 30th, 2023. The campaign seems to draw inspiration from Doom Eternal, with a new angelic-themed enemy faction and a grappling hook.
Not to be confused with Proteus.
Prodeus contains examples of:
- Alien Blood: Prodean creatures bleed bright blue.
- Antagonist Title: According to pre-release info, Prodeus is an enigmatic AI god and the creator of the game's world - whom the protagonist wants to take down via ridiculous amounts of shooting.
- Boring Yet Practical: Both the starting pistol and Shotgun may seem plain compared to the more esoteric weapons like the Arc Rail and Chaos Caster, but they both work well against most enemies, and can be replenished easily thanks to the copious amounts of ammunition available, especially against Shotgun Zombies.
- Boss in Mook's Clothing: Slayers, Void Reapers, Harbingers, Phantoms, and Cryomancers are all a lot tougher than regular mooks (all have durability roughly on par with a Hell Knight), and the first time you encounter each one it's treated essentially like a mini-boss battle.
- Charged Attack: The Shotgun and Chaos Caster's secondary fire can be held down for a more powerful attack. The Shotgun in particular gains increased accuracy, making it more effective at longer ranges.
- Checkpoint: Nexus points will save player's progress. Upon dying, the player respawns at the last touched nexus point. All progress is retained (i.e. killed enemies stay dead), resulting in Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Chaos creatures tend to either glow with and/or throw red energy, while Prodeus creatures glow with electrical blue energy.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Lava does not damage the player unless walked on directly.
- The Corruption: Chaos is apparently able to turn humans (referred to as "Mortals") into aggressive zombies, many of which can still use their firearms and are still intelligent enough to operate machinery. Prodeus in turn is able to turn most Chaos creatures into Prodeus creatures, turning them blue and making them stronger in the process. Prodeus doesn't seem to be able to take over Mortals (including zombified ones) aside from the Vessel, though it might consider them not worth the effort. You're also required to use Chaos energies to corrupt a Nexus Point in order to break into the Elder Dimension for the final level.
- Crate Expectations: Many levels feature a lot of crates in them. Most are made out of metal.
- Deflector Shields: Later in the game, some of the chaos enemies can have shields that absorb quite a bit of damage.
- Double Jump: The double jump upgrade can be unlocked at the shop and is needed for some secrets in earlier levels, encouraging you to go back and replay them.
- Dual Wielding: The Shredders, a pair of assault rifles that the Player Character always wields one in each hand. Somehow, they both draw from the same pool of ammo, so even if you only fire one you don't need to reload them until both are empty.
- Early-Bird Cameo: A few stronger enemies are briefly seen in the intro.
- Elite Mooks: Prodeus versions of various creatures tend to be noticeably more dangerous than the regular Chaos versions. The Prodeus fiend has more health and a hitscan lightning attack, compared to the regular fiend which throws a fireball.
- Excuse Plot: The campaign's story in the Early Access version is a thinly-veiled justification for having a cool dude shoot demons with cool guns. The full release doesn't really add a plot, either.
- Exploding Barrels: Explosive barrels with yellow paint are scattered here and there. Shooting them tends to kill nearby small and medium enemies outright.
- Expressive Health Bar: Character's portrait briefly flashes to be more skeletal when hit. The lower the health, the more skeletal the portrait becomes.
- Force-Field Door: Some doors and passages are locked with a force field.
- Hero-Tracking Failure: Averted, enemies will try to lead their shots, but since their projectiles aren't hitscan you can still avoid them by changing direction after they fire.
- High-Tech Hexagons: Prodean planet, especially one of the core levels, is filled with hexagonal columns, some which move. Prodeans are depicted to use the most advanced tech.
- Hollywood Acid: The acid in Prodeus tends to be green.
- Invisibility: One of the blue enemies can make the allies invisible. A couple of different Chaos demons also gain invisibility when corrupted by Prodeans.
- Invisible Wall: Trying to get out of bounds in some levels makes players encounter invisible barriers. This is especially apparent in the earlier levels.
- Lava Pit: Some levels have lava in them. In some cases, installations are flooded with lava, in other cases it's part of a factory setting.
- Level Editor: The Early Access version features an extremely detailed level creator function that can be used to make custom maps, and it carries over into the full release.
Word of God even states that the entire campaign was made in their own level creator. - Ludicrous Gibs: Dead enemies chunk gratuitously into bloody bits that splatter all over the floors and walls.
- Mêlée à Trois: Chaos and Prodeus forces will fight each other as well as the player.
- Monster Closet: Many enemies emerge from rooms that are completely closed off.
- More Dakka: The Shredders can be fired individually for precision, or fired simultaneously for increased damage output with reduced accuracy. There's also the Minigun.
- No Ending: The game just ends abruptly when you get pulled into the final portal leading to a new dimension, with a short text epilogue that basically says the war between Prodeus and Chaos continues (with Prodeus on the verge of winning) and the Vessel is passing into an unknown future. About the only thing about the final level that would clue you into the fact it's the final level is the fact it takes place in a boss arena and you fight the Hunter, the creature you saw briefly in the prologue level. Well, that and the giant pentagram under the level selection on the map.
- Order Versus Chaos: Some lore indicates that Prodeans are the Order to Chaos', well, Chaos.
- Pinball Projectile: The altfire for the auto-shotgun tightens the spread and causes the shot to ricochet off hard surfaces, projecting a helpful indicator to show the predicted ricochet path.
- Plasma Cannon: There's a plasma rifle that shoots plasma.
- Playing Both Sides: The Vessel seems intent on playing both sides long enough to reach their goal, breaching the Prodeus dimension and allowing Chaos to invade it - only to realize that this has given Chaos a significant advantage and thus needing to level the playing field again before things get out of hand.
- Protagonist Without a Past: Nothing is known about the protagonist except that he's referred to as "The Vessel" and is a silent A Space Marine Is You type. Vaguely technological facial markings on the portrait suggest that he might be a rogue Prodean, but it's left unclear.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Pressing both attack buttons at the same time while you have your fists up causes the protagonist to reduce demons into paste with high-speed punching.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: The Mammonth, chambers .666 and was co-designed by Anton Hand (creator of H3VR) as a backer reward. It is more effective than arc rail and pistols. It shoots highly damaging beams that can pierce through multiple enemies, its fire rate is significantly faster than arc rail beam (especially when aiming down sights), and the beams use only half the ammunition. Its only downside is having to reload the weapon quite often.
- Retraux: Played with. Mechanically, it resembles classic arena shooters of old with a few modern touches. Graphically, the game looks very modern and is visually impressive, but the character, weapon, and enemy models use a pixellated "sprite" style with a low animation frame-rate causing them to look similar to the sprites used by arena shooters like the original DOOM. Various effects such as smoke and fog are also pixellated. You can also choose to have the game use low-detail 3D models instead of sprites for enemies if you find this too jarring.
- Scenery Gorn: Being inspired by shooters from the 90's means this is a key trope of the game. Levels will be decorated with lots and lots of enemies' blood once the player is finished with them. Even without the blood, a lot of levels are smashed up. At one point you even revisit an earlier level that's since been frozen over as a result of the cryo-cannon station being dropped on the asteroid.
- Sequential Boss: The Final Boss, the Hunter, has comparable health to lesser Boss in Mook's Clothing enemies such as the Reaper, Harbinger, Phantom, or Cryomancer. It does increase its durability slightly with a fire shield and has decently powerful attacks, but overall can still be killed fairly quickly. However, you have to fight it 3 times in a row, alongside waves of many lesser enemies.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The primary fire of the regular shotgun and auto-shotgun have decent range for a shotgun, but are still ineffective at long range. However, the alt-fire for both of them is a molten slug that can be used for sniping. Played straight with the Super Shotgun, which annihilates enemies at close range, but can't hit the broad side of a barn beyond a few meters.
- Sticky Bomb: The alternate fire on the grenade launcher. Just don't stick them to charging enemies.
- Teleporting Keycard Squad: Enemies tend to spawn when grabbing an important item, such as a rune or a keycard.
- Video Game Dashing: A modest dashing ability can be unlocked at the shop.
- Variable Mix: There are usually 3 variations of the level music. The first plays when there are no enemies or only a few minor enemies onscreen. The second one plays when there are slightly more enemies and the final one plays when there are several active enemies onscreen.
- Wave-Motion Tuning Fork: The Arc Rail - a great Lightning Gun and a great Sniper Rifle, in one convenient package.
- We Can Rebuild Him: The prologue seems to imply the protagonist was a crewman or passenger on a human spaceship carrying a rune, which crashed into what looks like the Prodeus dimension, where he was killed by a security system due to scanning as an "organic". At this point someone, possibly Prodeus, rebuilds the protagonist as the A Space Marine Is You Vessel, at which point he breaks out and starts kicking ass indiscriminately.
- When It Rains, It Pours: When it rains in Prodeus, it is always heavy rain.
