Summary

• Wizordum, an early access game from Emberheart Games, is a must-play for Hexen fans and anyone who enjoys in-game level editing.
• With unique enemies, a fantasy setting, and magical spells, Wizordum sets itself apart from other movement shooters like Duke 3D.
• The game's first episode offers exceptional fun, fixing the frustrations of the original Hexen by giving players access to the best weapons and magical abilities. The level editor is a standout feature, allowing players to create their own designs.

Even though it's only 1/3 of the way complete, Emberheart Games' Wizordum is required playing for not just Hexen fans, but anyone who has ever looked up from messing around with an in-game level editor only to realize it's 03:00 and you've been working on diagetic enemy placement for six hours. As yet another movement shooter from Apogee in the vein of Duke 3D, Wizordum stands out by pulling the same trick Hexen did when it branched off the DOOM engine in 1995; setting itself apart with unique enemies, an elaborate fantasy setting, and magical spells instead of assault rifles. It worked then, and it works here too.

Currently, Wizordum is in early access and has only released the first episode of an eventual three (that's the 1/3 I mentioned earlier). It's the 2023 equivalent of how games like DOOM released a free shareware version in order to hook players and then charged them for the rest of the game, but now you pay first and wait for the full launch to have access to the complete experience. The old way was unarguably better for players, but shareware marketing hasn't been a viable business model since people stopped mailing floppy disks to each other, and the only thing preventing players from waiting until the game is finished is FOMO.

Condensed & Updated Switch Flipping

Fortunately, the first episode of Wizordum is exceptionally fun. Hexen was unique in the fact that it let players choose at the start of their adventure whether they would play as a Mage, a Cleric, or a Fighter, and each of these three characters had their own stats and weapons not available to the other two. This was a neat idea, but in practice it could be frustrating; the Mage was the only character who started off with a ranged weapon, for instance, but it was incredibly weak. The Cleric had the coolest ultimate weapon (a staff that summoned deadly ghosts to swarm enemies) and could shoot fire from his hands, but could never put out as much damage as the relatively lame-looking Fighter.

Wizordum fixes this by doing away with the idea of multiple characters and giving the player a grab-bag of the best weapons and magical abilities Hexen had to offer, along with a few new ones. The main melee weapon, a mace not dissimilar to Hexen's Cleric starting weapon, has the added bonus of being able to be charged with mana just like Timon's Axe, a feature which makes it useful not just as a last resort but as a viable option in regular combat. The next few weapons players will come across (Fire Rings and a magic wand that shoots ice) are both also improvements on Hexen's Firestorm and Sapphire Wand respectively.

I've found using Wizordum's ice wand to freeze enemies and then smashing them to bits with the mace to be a great way of conserving ammo. This is especially effective against bats, which drop to the ground and shatter immediately upon being frozen.

The core gameplay loop of Wizordum should be familiar to anyone who played 2.5D shooters in the 1990s. Players move through levels at a higher-than-average speed while flipping switches, pulling chains, and just generally finding different variations of keys to open different variations of locks while being attacked by rats, ogres, cultists, and a wide range of other monsters. Sometimes these keys or switches need to be shot, and sometimes they need to be grabbed. Walls may or may not contain secret areas if you push them. There's not any attempted over-the-top wheel reinvention going on here, nor should there be.

Wizordum is Hexen refined and condensed to its core elements, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the game's lack of a jump button. The worst part about Hexen (and, to be fair, most FPS games of the late 90s and early 2000s, especially Half-Life) are the horrible platforming sections which littered the levels. It wasn't just that the platforming sections were difficult, which they were, but often failure to land perfectly meant an instant death, which would necessitate either saving the game before each jumping section or replaying a large chunk of the level over again. Wizordum has no jumping, and it's a better game for it.

Build-a-Game Workshop

The eight levels available in the early access release of Wizordum can be finished somewhat quickly depending on the player's skill level (and how much they care about finding 100% of all the Secret Areas and hidden treasures scattered throughout each). That might not sound like enough content to justify a release at this time, but considering the asking price of $14.99 and the promise of more episodes in the future, it feels like a fair amount. That's before discussing what is absolutely my favorite part of Wizordum, and the reason why I haven't really played much else in the past week - the Level Editor.

Level Editors are the best thing FPS game developers can give their players. From playing around with the Build engine to modding Half-Life, from TimeSplitters' MapMaker to DOOM 2016's custom multiplayer levels, allowing players access to development tools and letting them see what they can create themselves has long been a feature worth championing. The Level Editor in Wizordum is fantastic, and allows for some truly massive and intricate designs. There are still some issues that are being worked out - during the period of review, a much-appreciated patch was issued that, among other things, made this small adjustment: "Placing an empty "Creature Riser" object in the level editor won't crash the level anymore." Oh, and also this one: "Boss will die properly now."

To be completely fair, Wizordum's most recent patch at the time of writing also includes the note "Frozen enemies will shatter into ice gibs/cubes" so overall it's a net win for players all around. This game loves its gibs and isn't afraid to show it - there's even a Gore slider if you want to make it look as close to Brutal DOOM as possible.

Like I said, it's Early Access. These types of patches and fixes are to be expected, and it speaks to the quality of the team at Emberheart Games that multiple fixes and patches have come so quickly after Wizordum's launch. All available evidence shows the company plans to continue updating and improving the game throughout the EA period, and I can't wait to see how the final product ends up. Even if it was just this, though, for $14.99 and the promise of an endless amount of community-made levels that will likely get even weirder and more intricate than anything I could ever come up with, Wizordum is worth it - at least for people like me who still prefer games like Graven and Ion Fury over whatever Call of Duty we're on now.

Wizordum is available now on PC via Steam Early Access. A Steam code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review. Video review recorded and scripted by Chris Teuton. See more from Chris at Filthy & Free Publishing on YouTube.