Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/07/remembering-descent-the-once-popular-fully-3d-6dof-shooter/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33491044

99 points · 15 comments · view on lemmy.world

15 Comments

xangadix@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1y (3 replies)

The author failes to mention that some of the Original creators went on and made Overload, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overload_(video_game), a modern descent version. It even supports vr (which is awesome). A bit lazy journalism tbh

DosDude@retrolemmy.com · 4 pts · 1y (2 replies)

You made me buy this game, and I'm now sitting with my steam deck enjoying a new descent game. Thank you. I've finished the first few levels, and it's exactly like descent in many ways with qol upgrades.

xangadix@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I love this ☺️, I hope you have as much fun with it as I had. If you get the chance, try it in VR too. it is one of the most enjoyable games in VR that I've played!

DosDude@retrolemmy.com · 2 pts · 1y

If AMD decides to update the drivers so my rift S isn't just showing greens, I will. I'm not a fan of downgrading drivers just to play VR.

ouRKaoS@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 1y (1 reply)

My favorite thing in this game was how everyone would orient themselves differently. There was no "the enemy gate is down" mentality, you'd come around a corner and people would be at some weird, sideways angle and you'd think "wait, that's supposed to be 'down'?" Right before shooting them in all 3 of their polygons.

Good times

Klear@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 1y

Oh, I remember this one. It was confusing but fun. My friend and I linked PCs via serial cable but I think my machine was too slow to handle it.

He could fly around and shoot me down with no issues but all I could see was a slideshow! It was unplayable. 😄

Lembot_0004@discuss.online · 6 pts · 1y (3 replies)
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DosDude@retrolemmy.com · 12 pts · 1y (2 replies)

I, on the other hand, loved it. Especially with a joystick. Though I was too young to really get far. I've picked it up since, and I still absolutely love it.

Ragnor@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 1y

I really enjoyed it as well. We had a demo of it on the computers in my school back in 95/96, and it was an absolute blast to play in multiplayer during recess. It had 3 multiplayer maps as far as I recall, but we only played one of them. The other two were too much of a maze, and you could easily spend a long time without seeing anyone even though the game was full.

As far as I recall it was inside a space station where there was one large central room, and two floors on the outside that were shaped like a 4-leaf clover where there were weapons and things like that.

The absolute best thing that you could do was to land a missile on someone. They were so incredibly slow!

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1y

I never got far either. Civvie 11 did a playthrough awhile back. Apparently it has some cheap high damage enemies as you progress

https://youtu.be/zngj7EVU8t0

stooovie@mas.to · 4 pts · 1y

@DosDude and Acclaim's technically impressive clone, Forsaken!

Gerudo@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

One of the only games to give me vertigo.

chanibal@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1y

You had to buy vertigo, it was not given for free :D (the mission pack for D2 was called Vertigo)

a4ng3l@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

One of the few games that worked on my vfx1 20 something years ago… a blast. I tried it’s successor when I got the index but it failed to revive the flame.

fzz@programming.dev · 2 pts · 1y

I remembered it with VR of those times! 🥹