Five years. It's been five long years since we launched DUSK v1.0
Even longer than that if you count Early Access and the two years of development that started in 2016.
And throughout all that time, we always promised to make DUSK as open and moddable for you as we possibly can.
But what we didn't promise you was a full remaster of the game only 5 years after its release. And that's what we've somehow done. What started as a fun way to beef up the DUSK Steam Workshop soon evolved into a full blown visual remaster thanks to the hard work of a group of very talented developers at New Blood under the supervision of David Szymanski, myself (Dave), our QA Lead Cam, Dev Support Lead Scott, and the rest of the New Blood crew. And the result? is DUSK HD
Watch on YouTube
The response to DUSK HD has been bigger than we ever could have possibly imagined. So much so that we've decided to make it into its own FREE DLC that you can download and play without having to install anything else... RIGHT NOW.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2717300/DUSK_HD/
Go ahead, prove yourself... WORTHY.
What that also means is that we've spent the last few months working overtime on DUSK HD to make sure it's as legitimate and cohesive and possible. Constantly iterating, tweaking and adding new things every day. It rules. We hope you love it.
HOWEVER
While DUSK has indeed been somewhat moddable and mappable for years - Shout out to DUSKmods.com - we've always envisioned a world in which DUSK was just as moddable as DOOM and and the other classics that inspired us.
We knew that undertaking would be massive, requiring us to basically rewrite the entire game and engine from scratch (which we have) but here we are, closing in on a decade of development, with the full DUSK DDK (Dusk Development Kit) ALMOST ready for you to use.
That's right, while DUSK HD and the basic SDK and Steam Workshop are indeed AVAILABLE FOR YOU NOW. The Full Dusk Development Kit built upon the new version of DUSK is still a few weeks away.
What does that mean?
Well, DUSK HD is playable now and the Steam Workshop is fully functional!
You can: Make and play custom maps, (even basically drag and drop Quake and Half Life maps) use texture replacements and sound replacements. Plus every file from the base game is available for you to use. You cannot: Have custom models (enemies), entities, weapons, and nothing from the HD pack is available for you to use yet.
Once the FULL SDK built on the new version of DUSK is available SOON™ you will be able to play all the custom maps with both Classic or HD visuals, replace weapons, models and more.
Speaking of which, we've added a new weapon to the game :)
Watch on YouTube(It shares slot 7 with the crossbow)
Oh and DUSK - Moddable will even detect any installed games with compatible assets and allow you to seamlessly load their maps. Thanks, Garry.
This massive undertaking has been the work of primarily two of our developers.
Ben "Zombie" Moir has been rewriting DUSK from the ground up for nearly 5 years and David "Garumin" Bonin has remade every single visual asset from DUSK by hand over the last two years as well as creating all new ones to add to DUSK HD.
And unbeknownst to them, all the profits from DUSK for the month of December 2023 will be split between David and Ben. Don't spend it all in one place, lads.
The entirely new enemy and weapon models were made by our 3D artist Cody Lambert and all the new animations you see were made by our animators Dom Antonazzo and Lachlan Milne.
These developers all started out as external contractors for us and because of DUSK HD they are now full time New Blood employees working across all our games. WELCOME TO THE CULT.
All that being said... if you, dear reader, are playing DUSK for the first time, fifth time, or 500th time...
We hope it helps you realize a few things.
Firstly: We love you and we hate money.
Secondly: We work hard.
And lastly: There's only one... DUSK
https://store.steampowered.com/app/519860/DUSK/