YMMV / DUSK

• Alternate Character Interpretation: There are some fans, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness, who believe Big John is trying to resist the possession that befell the militia, which casts his boastful "Come on, try and kill me!" in a different light.
• Awesome Music: A given with Andrew Hulshult, who was also behind the music of the Rise of the Triad reboot. Examples include Mine Control, Hand Cannon, Departure to Destruction, Endless, Skinwalker, Erebus, Occultivated, and Keepers of the Gate.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Big John; his gameplay is standard but, as The Ahnold, his dialogue makes him very entertaining to go up against. Plus, he comes at the end of the Erebus Reactor.
  • The penultimate boss, Jakob, has seen widespread praise due to being one of the most unique bosses in the game: he fights exactly like the player, b-hopping and switching weapons on the fly, and testing how well the player has mastered those mechanics.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The final few missions of Episode 2 are absolutely incredible. Standouts include the Escher Labs, which work on some excellent atmosphere and Mind Screw, The Erebus Reactor, which is a fight in an utterly massive arena with multiple smaller structures and lit by four flaming towers, Neobabel, a lab of some sort in the sky above the Facilities which has tons of Scenery Porn, and The Dig, which is an extremely claustrophobic and atmospheric finale that takes place in a horrific cavern deep below the earth.
  • There's also Episode 1's Through The Gate, which features a climatic Mêlée à Trois between you, the military and the cultists at the entrance of the city of Dusk, and Ghost Town, which is a wide-open level full of multiple paths and hidden secrets.
  • The Infernal Machine is a nightmarish and claustrophobic trek through The Thresher, an evil machine that somehow has people inside it. The actual layout is pretty standard fare but the atmosphere makes it an awesomely terrifying romp.
  • Episode 3 is no slouch in the fantastic levels department either. Highlights are City of Shadows, a sprawling, demonic underground city full of places to explore, Crypt of the Flesh, which is an extremely dark, claustrophobic and creepy level, and Blasphemy, which contains one of the most jawdropping scripted events in the game. Namely, a gigantic blood tornado which destroys the cathedral in the centre of the map.
• Cliché Storm: Due to the game's nature as a Genre Throwback and its very loose plot, it has quite a few familiar cliches not only to the FPS genre (an off-screen voice that taunts the player, the soldier enemies introduced midway into episode 1, using most of the classic Standard FPS Guns roster), but also common horror ones (Hillbilly Horrors, hellish experiments, an amoral cult, Cosmic Horror Story elements, and even the game ending on the hero becoming a major part of the forces he was fighting).
• Complete Monster: Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, is secretly the benefactor and the mastermind behind the cult operating in Dusk. His insane influence pervading throughout the entire town, Nyarlathotep possesses and corrupts its populace into his servants while turning Dusk into a hotbed of sacrifice, mad experiments and depraved rituals. Nyarlathotep gives his servants "spark" to take blood and bone from others to power a horrible machine known as the Thresher, having countless ground into an ocean of blood to empower a portal to the Nameless City. Even when "Dusk Dude" defeats him and kills Jakob, his cult leader, Nyarlathotep merely opts to make the protagonist his eternal servant in turn as a twisted testament to his "worth".
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The scarecrows in Episode 1 can be a true pain in the ass. They're resilient enough to withstand 2-3 Super Shotgun blasts to the face, and their shotguns will absolutely wreck your health if you get too close to them, especially in higher difficulties.
  • The Fork Maidens (zombie farmer ladies) in Episode 1 can also make things difficult for you if you're not careful. They're slow, but their projectiles are certainly not, and in "Cero Miedo" will do more than 40 hp of damage if they connect. To top it off, they're as resilient as the scarecrows!
  • Out of the enemies introduced in Episode 2, Wendigos are particularly annoying due to their invisibility, with very few tells of where they are (you have to deduce their location mostly by their heavy breathing, although they can also push objects around which is a dead giveaway). They deal also heavy damage with their claws, and a few levels into the episode they start to come in groups, which may force you to get some mileage on the Riveter. The complaints were strong enough that the devs added visual cues (bloody footprints and the flashlight flickering) to somewhat even the odds.
  • Scientists, technically first encountered in the last stage of Episode 1, but much more common in Episode 2. They only have melee attacks, and can take only a few more hits than a soldier, but they have one of the strongest attacks in the game. A single hit will take you from 100 health to nearly dead. And they just love to ambush you around corners.
  • The female cyborgs in Episode 2 (named Cowgirls) are the toughest non-boss enemy in the game, to the point they're basically Bosses In Mook Clothing. They have a massive health pool (enough to last at least 5 rounds from the Hunting Rifle) and can kill you with a single rocket barrage. Make sure you use any cover available and never stand still when you encounter them.
  • In episode 3, you will come across the Horrors. These things are fast, and have a projectile vomit attack that can put a serious dent in your health if it connects at close range. Besides, their horrific appearance and their unsettling wheezes, groans and moans make them perfect for ambushing and startling the player, a practice they are quite fond of.
  • Also introduced in episode 3, the Hounds of Torment (colloquially known as cart dogs) are not to be trifled with. They move at a deliberate pace until they decide to charge at you without warning, doing a lot of damage in higher difficulties. Their high hp doesn't help matters, either. The only good thing about them is that they can be led to charge at explosive barrels or other enemies.
• Difficulty Spike: While Episode 1 has some challenging levels, Episode 2 turns the difficulty knob up to eleven from the very beginning.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Big John, due to his dialogue, funny accent, and surprise appearance.
  • The Cart Dog, due to its endearingly dumb design. The dev team seem to have anticipated it, showing off its player model long before its mechanics as an enemy were known.
• Funny Moments:
  • Duskdude's reaction to Cart Dog after killing it in the first encounter? "Bad Dog".
  • Scarecrows lug around Super Shotguns. And yes, they are EVERY bit as devastating as when you get your hands on one.
  • Upon killing the Intoxigator in the first episode, the cult leader will get pretty mad at you because you just killed his pet.
  • When you finally get to fight Jakob, the ringleader of the cult, he fights exactly like a frequent FPS player who knows how to exploit the game's physics, doing bunny hopping and switching weapons on the fly.
  • Playing a match on Duskworld and watching a Cart Dog zoom across a map with a gun strapped to the top of the cart.
  • One month after the game's release, New Blood's Dave Oshry announced that the game has sold exactly 69,420 copies.
  • Some levels have a single, still-wet bar of soap sitting in the open. Throwing it at things like boxes and corpses gibs them instantly, and so you might assume its just a joke on cleaning up messes. But then you might throw it into a mob and realize it gibs enemies. And it can gib any enemy that one can throw soap at. Then you start finding little secret alcoves in every level that has this profoundly deadly bar of soap and realize it can be used on bosses.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • The rats, which are hard to hit and appear in groups so that their minimal damage stacks. They're even worse if they accompany other, more powerful enemies because they move fast enough that they'll usually always get to you first, and serve as an effective distraction while the more dangerous mooks attack you.
  • Black Phillips are among the weakest enemies in terms of health (one well-placed shotgun shot can down them), but their main form of attack (spitting blood) is both fast and hard to see, making them a nuisance if left unchecked.
  • One Bone Monk isn't too much of a problem, being essentially a slightly more resilient Mage that can fly. The problem is that they have a tendency to attack in large groups, making it very easy to get overwhelmed by their fire projectiles on top of them being harder to aim at due to their ability to fly.
• Growing the Beard: While Episode 1 is a solid experience, Episode 2 features much larger, sprawling environments, has locales with greater variety than Episode 1, and starts telling a fairly coherent story without interrupting the flow of gameplay, and also starts making the game much more challenging.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: One of the main complaints about the bosses is that they generally feel too similar to a lot of the regular enemies, which takes away some of the gravitas for fighting them, and isn't helped by at least one of them (a single, large Cowgirl) becoming a regular enemy. That being said, "The Nameless City" is seen to significantly up its game for the final two, Jakob and Nyarlathotep, due to the former being a cool Mirror Boss, and the latter for being a bigger, more straightforward boss fight that leads into the game's Downer Ending.
• Memetic Mutation: SOON™^ExplanationThe initially announced release date of the game, and one that the devs and fans alike love to repeat.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Once the player gets past the creepy throaty moaning and wrongness of the design, the Horrors can instead look incredibly silly due to their comical running (not helped by the fact that once they exit their idle pose to attack enemies, they run in place after all enemies are gone) and elongated faces, which probably isn't helped by becoming fairly regular enemies after the level headlining them.
  • The Bone Monk can also fall into this. Sure, the idea of HALF a demonic, skeletal monk flying around spitting fireballs should be creepy, but due to the low-res design and the fact their legless pelvis is comically sticking out their robes, it makes them look like they're just wandering about in a cheap hoodie and forgot to put on their pants this morning.
• One-Scene Wonder: Nyarlathotep, the true main villain, only shows up in the very last level of the game, but leaves an impression due to a creepy performance by Stephan Weyte (known to many fans as Caleb), and singlehandedly causing the Downer Ending of the game.
• Polished Port: The Switch port is near perfect, suffering only a few framerate drops in the most condensed of areas (E3M2, particularly the snowfield near the end, is the biggest offender). The devs also built the controls with gamepads and joycons in mind, adding in gyro controls. It's considered one of, if not the best, first person shooters on the console.
• Spiritual Successor: Quite a few people have called this game the closest we'll get to a third Blood game, due to the cult theme of the enemies, the Dusk Dude being partially based on Caleb, the often darkly comedic tone, and Stephan Weyte, Caleb's voice actor, having a surprise appearance in the game as the voice of Nyarlathotep.
• Signature Scene: The Erebus Reactor and Blasphemy are both considered standout stages in the game, due to their large, sprawling arenas with tons of enemies to battle against. Blasphemy also has one of the most memorable scenes in the game, with a tornado of blood destroying everything in its path after you get past the large battle.
• Tear Jerker:
  • What little we get of Dusk Dude's Dark and Troubled Past:
  Dusk Dude: It hurts to remember...
  • We learn more of Dusk Dude’s past from a forum post by the devs, revealing Dusk Dude used to live in DUSK with his wife and child, but while he was away his family was sacrificed to the cult, possibly by being burned alive in their home.
• That One Achievement: A programming quirk means that enemies killed by other enemy explosives will count you as having killed enemies, discounting your Pacifist Run (which usually ignores infighting), resulting in some irritation for completionists.
• That One Level:
  • The Cutty Mine will most likely be the first map to give first-time players trouble due to its dim lighting, surprise ambushes in cramped areas, and health and ammo pickups being less plentiful than in previous maps. The game's difficulty begins to ramp up a bit starting with this level.
  • Into the Thresher is manageable except for a particularly nasty fight in the outdoor area that's crawling with Episode 2's newer and more difficult enemies, particularly Grand Wizards and Welders. If you don't come into this part with a plan, you'll be in for a rough time.
  • The Ratacombs, Episode 3's secret level. As the name would suggest, this level has over a hundred rats as its only enemies, complete with a giant rat as a mini-boss. Besides that, the act of taking out groups of rats on top of the rather similar-looking areas tend to drag this map out a bit.
  • The Dweller in Darkness, the penultimate level. An absolutely massive gauntlet containing every enemy type in the game, topped off with a rematch against the bosses of the first two episodes at the same time. While the game is generous with health and ammo pickups, as well as an Easy Level Trick that can skip the entire fight, the sheer volume of enemies in this map makes it a fitting final challenge before the final boss.
• Unexpected Character: Big John had shown up prior in the remake of Rise of the Triad, and makes a sudden appearance in this game as one of the bosses of Episode 2.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Would you believe us if we told you this wasn't a heavily modified version of the Quake engine and that the game is running on Unity? The game looks amazing with the low poly graphics, which boosts the atmosphere (and horror) tenfold.

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