DIVINE FREQUENCY

This horror-RPG-FPS built in the Doom engine is terrifying

- Ted Litchfield

I knew I was in for a stomach-churning time with Divine Frequency’s demo after I finally acquired my first weapon. I came up to a hallway in the game’s vast industrial underbelly and spied an ominous figure looming way down the hall. The light above it cut out, I turned around, and there it was: a horrible faceless mannequin an eyelash’s length away.

I panicked, started blasting, and swore so loud my girlfriend heard from down the hall. The mannequin is actually completely harmless, and I just wasted precious ammo and weapon durability on a prank. Divine Frequency punked me.

This horror-FPS-RPG launched its first Steam demo during 2023’s Realms Deep event, a former mod project now getting reworked into a full game. It’s built on GZDoom, the ubiquitous source port of id Software’s classic, and it’s one of those Doom-based games that makes you say, “Wait, you can do this in the Doom engine?”