Post War Dreams Demo

Shooters have come a long way in the last two decades or so, especially in terms of realism and gameplay mechanics. Some games truly make you feel like you are in the middle of a war, but there’s more to the genre than realism, and great things can come out of original ideas. The first-person perspective is not mandatory in order to create a memorable experience.

Post War Dreams is a 2.5D shooter with platforming elements, in which you play the role of a man as he is trying to get out of Washington DC in order to survive. The game is designed to encourage the cover & shoot approach to conflict, and there are some RPG ideas in there as well, given the fact that sometimes you get to make choices and accept missions from other characters.

The story is fairly intriguing, and it puts you in the shoes of Garrett Mitchell, a survivor who wants to escape from Washington DC. The whole country is in shambles, but DC has been closed down by the military in order to contain the violence. Hence, you have to tackle both soldiers and lawless gang members along the way, which is quite the challenge.

Once you start playing, it becomes painfully obvious how much work is still needed in almost every department. The actual shooting mechanics are the worst, because aiming with your mouse is about as unpredictable as it can get, and sometimes there’s really no way to place the crosshair on an enemy. Some of the hotkeys do not work as intended, and the cover system is very broken as well.

The controls are not helping either, because everything breaks down once you stop moving and start shooting. Given the fact that there are always enemies in the background trying to stop you, the game gets frustrating in a rush. Thankfully, at least the graphics are fairly pleasant, even if the color scheme can get a tad too repetitive after a while.

In the end, Post War Dreams might be in early access at this point, but it shouldn’t have hit the public domain at all in this state. Thus, it needs some serious work in the gameplay department before it even becomes playable, and there are many other things that need to be fixed or rethought as well.