The amount of Vampire Survivors-likes have rivalled the endless waves of monsters that fill up the screen in the bullet heaven roguelike itself, but a new Steam Next Fest demo is taking that roguelike chaos and breathing new life into the formula.
Dieseldome: Oil and Blood takes the Survivors structure – which has you mowing down enemies until your eyes turn pink and grabbing randomized upgrades as level up – and slaps it onto a blisteringly fast FPS. Developer GHST Studios calls it a ‘Movement Shooter,’ which is just a fancy way of saying it was at least somewhat inspired by Doom Eternal and that game’s wicked jump-and-gun combat.
And it absolutely rips (and tears). The Steam demo has three gladiators you can unlock, each pushed into a ‘RomanPunk’ arena that has retro-futuristic set dressings decorating an ancient colosseum, which already makes for a badass introduction. From there, increasingly dense waves of flying eagles, rotting soldiers, floating steel balls, and sometimes even blimps will attack either you or one of several objectives scattered around. Scoring back-to-back kills or successfully defending an objective will rile up the live crowd and push you to your next level up quicker.
Where things get interesting is in the actual movement and old-school gunplay. There’s double jumps (and a triple jump, if you unlock it), dizzyingly fast wall-runs, and even pipes in the map that’ll fling you into the sky. Chaining a wall-run into a slide before blasting an enemy in the face is always a thrill, no matter how many times I pulled it off, and things only get more wild when you unlock the spartan who comes with a god damn grappling hook, as if things weren’t frantic enough. My only complaint on this side of things is that the demo doesn’t currently support controllers, which is how I prefer playing my shooters, so you might end up with a stiff wrist after a while.
But the upgrades you unlock can help ease the tension. There’s a ball and chain that swirls around your character and hits anything that comes too close – every Survivors-like has its own version of garlic, and Dieseldome is no different. There’s a friendly tank that can take our airborne targets. There’s an eagle pet who’s a very good boy and swipes down on all enemies.
Either way, Dieseldome’s lightning speed movement and always-moreish Survivors structure had me playing “one more game” practically all night. The meta progression system was a big reason why, too, as you can even place ‘Bets’ here and risk earning or losing massive amounts of gold if you can successfully complete different challenges. The risk-and-reward even encourages you to curate your build and playstyle depending on what that challenge is, so I never really settled into a comfortable routine that soon got boring, and I can’t wait to see what else GHST Studios has in store when Dieseldome comes out in early access.
For now, check out the ten best Steam Next Fest demos that you should absolutely try before it’s too late.
