Supplice greatest strength and weakness is its reliance on nostalgia, and as a result, while it is likely to appeal to gamers from the 1990s, beyond giving a glimpse of “how things used to be”, it has very little to offer anyone born within the past 20+ years.
Singleplayer.
Due to its deliberately archaic visuals, Supplice runs at incredibly high FPS on all but extremely low-end hardware, and I could easily run it at a rock solid 1080p/200FPS on my 5700 XT build without breaking a sweat.
It appears that Supplice is capped at 200 fps, and those using more powerful cards are unlikely to get better fps without modifying game files.
Having lived (and gamed) through the 1990s, I can honestly say no game from the era (not even Doom) ran so dizzyingly fast. While I grew accustomed to it after around 1 hour of play, the general feeling of dizziness and, at times, nausea induced by 200 fps navigation of levels was uncomfortable, and it diminished my enjoyment of what would have been a very pleasant walk down memory lane.
While I understand why Supplice opted not to include a jump or crouch mechanic, many games from the 1990s did include such mechanics, and opting to mimic one of the most frustrating aspects of game design from that era is in no way a requirement to making an authentic 1990s experience.
While some have found a way to enable jumping by modifying the config files, this can result in unexpected outcomes, such as getting stuck in places that players were not meant to explore and gaining premature access to areas that are not yet unlocked, resulting in game-breaking bugs and loss of progression.
While the developer has incorporated controller prompts and keybinding in-game, and Supplice can be played almost in its entirety, the developers do not officially support the use of a controller and have been silent about their plans (if any) to enable full controller support now that Supplice has released into early access.
During early access, Supplice trusts players directly into the first mission upon starting the game. Except for lore snippets and messages across scattered terminals, it makes no effort to explain to players who or where they are and what is happening.
While a good narrative isn’t needed for a title like this, even 1990s titles gave players some indication of what was going on, and copying the worst the 1990s had to offer instead of the best, will be unlikely to go down well with the wider gaming community.
It’s widely agreed upon that “sex sells”, and for better or worse, that is true; however, equally true is that nostalgia sells, and gamers of my generation (35+) and older are more than willing to invest time and money into reliving our childhoods.
With retro consoles, games, and even subscription services being created to fill the demand for a taste of the past, it’s clear why developers, both old and new, are more than willing to cater to a very willing and often flush with cash demography.
Unfortunately for titles such as Supplice, despite being incredibly well made and offering players period authentic gunplay, audio and visuals, it’s not something that was part of our childhood, and because of that, it doesn’t fill the void that a true remaster or rerelease of a childhood title would provide.
While I am thrilled to see the type of games I played in my youth return, I cannot help but feel the boomer shooter genre needs to do more than rehash Doom indefinitely if it wants to remain relevant in the way that pixel art RPGs and roguelikes have for well over 40 years.
Supplice is a shooter video game developed by Mekworx and published by Hyperstrange, it was released on 6 April 2023 and retails for $14.99.
Supplice is available exclusively on PC.
On average Supplice takes between 7 and 9 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Supplice is unrated and contains:
As a fan of 1990s games and a supporter of the Boomer shooter revival, Supplice is right up my alley; however, due to its reliance on nostalgia and era-accurate lack of quality-of-life improvements, I find it difficult to recommend Supplice to anyone who is not already a fan of the genre or who was alive and gaming in the 1990s.
