After successfully being crowdfunded through Kickstarter by Saibot Studios back in June of 2018, the developers have been hard at work trying to get the retro first-person shooter sculpted, refined, and into tip top shape for release on Steam. In fact, they’ve confirmed that the game’s full release date is set for August 4th, and they even released a new trailer to give you a look at what the campaign mode will be like.

This comes after they released the Survival Mode for Hellbound back in 2018, shortly after the Kickstarter wrapped up. Tobias Rusjan from Saibot Studios, explained that they’ve been using that time (and player feedback) to craft and hewn a very solid first-person experience out of Hellbound for gamers, saying…

“Hellbound: Survival Mode has been available on Steam for two years, and the response from old school shooter fans has been incredible! We’ve learned a lot since the demo’s release, and have fueled that into the creation of a full-fledged campaign that will test players’ mettle as they carve their way through demons as fast as they can! Speed is the name of the game in Hellbound,”

But enough prattle, it’s time to see the game in action. You can check out the Hellbound campaign trailer below.

The gameplay mechanics remind me of DOOM but with the level design of Quake and a first-person aesthetic of Brutal Legend.

That’s not a bad combination by the way.

The gameplay looks fast and furious, but I do worry about the stage designs being a little too large for the scarce amount of activity they have going on around them.

Some games got around this by filling their levels with non-stop action, like the earlier Serious Sam titles, which were known for having these large, spacious environments filled to the brim with hundreds of enemies.

However, I do have to commend them for keeping the action moving fast and fluid, and having gamers explore the environments for health pick-ups, armor, weapons, and secrets.

There are also some tight Corridor 7-style segments where you’re inside of some tight spaces where reaction times and peeping corners becomes necessary for survival.

There’s a good mixture of skill-based shooting and exploration involved, which could make Hellbound a new-age FPS classic. We’ll see if they deliver the goods in spades when August 4th gets here. In the meantime you can check out the free trial over on the Steam store page or visit the official website for more information.

(Thanks for the news tip Guardian EvaUnit02)