Maps are designed as fully 3D with multiple tiers, using both portals and 3D floors. The amazing thing about this project is that it is so completely built around movement. The resulting mix of complexity and Doomy pixelation feels much more like the classic 2D Metroid games (Super Metroid, Fusion, and Zero Mission in particular) rather than a more modern sort of 3D open-world game-which is to say, it nails the feeling of being both an homage and something fresh and new.ĭid I mention movement mechanics? Yeah. Pantheon Ark fleshes out the concept much more fully with UDMF features, ACS, and ZScript, allowing for not only a larger range of actors and narrative events, but most importantly a greatly expanded set of movement mechanics. The first time I saw hints of this idea was in Ryath's experimental (and very cool) Bury My Heart Knee-Deep, a huge single map that somehow accomplishes the open-world feel and item-unlockable progression in vanilla format. The Doom engine is a really fascinating playground for a Metroidvania, given that it's 3D but still has enough cartoony abstraction to accommodate classic genre tropes. But like any story, its quality is measured by how well it's told, and Pantheon Ark's narrative keeps it minimalist while serving as an atmospheric backdrop that allows the grungy, creepy setting and awesome spritework to shine.
As you can tell from the quoted bit above, the story is similar to most Doom plotlines an experiment by people seeking greater power goes horribly wrong, and now the godship is crewed by the dead scientists and soldiers who created it alongside the demonic creatures they spawned to serve them. Thus begins Pantheon Ark, a full-length Metroidvania in the Doom engine using the monsters, weapons, and items from Amuscaria's Hell-Forged. A docking bay in the rear of the ship lies open and empty, like a waiting maw. You don't think there's time to call anyone else, and you know of no higher level of crisis response than the one that's already been engaged. Judging from the stellar array along its glistening back, the godship's work on Pantheon is done it will only be a few days before it has the capability to leave the atmosphere and reach Celesta and beyond. Everyone's heard the stories of the weapons project on Pantheon, a secret orbit that pulled in the quadrant's best minds for ten years, never to be heard from again. The only heat signature you find is slowly circling the planet's stratosphere: a massive and indescribable construct of tech and bone, its conduits pumping something the exact temperature of living blood.
By the time you arrive on Pantheon, the world is already dead, its surface life cut off almost as abruptly as the panic signal they sent to the station at Celesta.