PowerSlave Exhumed is one of the best retro remasters ever made

As Eurogamer’s technology editor and founder of Digital Foundry, it’s fair to say that my focus is usually on the future of gaming, not the past. For many, retro gaming is a voyage of discovery and delight, but for me, it’s part of a 30-year-long career. With that in mind, few games retain a vice-like grip on my affections decades on from release – but Lobotomy Software’s PowerSlave (or Exhumed as I knew it at launch) is a game for the ages. For me, it’s up there with Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D as one of the greatest shooters of the 90s – and now it’s back on all modern platforms, thanks to an astonishing remaster from Nightdive Studios. Skip ahead to the video below to see just how wonderful the remastering work is or jump ahead once more to see John Linneman’s original DF Retro episode on the title: see an expert deconstruction of what made this game so special.

The bottom line is that PowerSlave Exhumed was the cream of the crop from the 90s ‘Doom clone’ explosion, a game that actually manifested in three different forms: an interesting but not exactly brilliant PC game designed on 3D Realms’ Build engine, followed up by two custom console versions that were very, very different, both using Lobotomy Software’s own SlaveDriver engine.

A technological powerhouse on consoles (especially so on Saturn), PowerSlave Exhumed combined cutting-edge visuals with proper full 3D environments (as opposed to Doom’s ‘flat’ levels), but still hailed from the era where opponents were 2D sprites. Performance wasn’t solid on Saturn, but generally held at 30fps, with movement accentuated with a pleasing camera roll/sway effect, while beautiful dynamic lighting on effects introduced effects unseen on equivalent PC titles.

The real revelation was an emphasis on gameplay we’d not seen before in this genre, where Metroid-style progression elements were seamlessly woven into the game. One level sees the route forward limited to just one direction, the player passing a steep wall that can’t be climbed, several locked doors that can’t be opened and a gap that can’t be jumped. Eventually you uncover the power-up to jump the gap, find the key that opens the doors and so forth. Progression leads to further obstacles and new mysteries to solve, turning a linear experience into more of a labyrinth of highly compelling puzzles.