Bullet-hell FPS Hyper Demon is like staring point-blank into an eldritch stargate

polygon.com:

Y’all know what a palantír is, right?

For those neither versed in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien nor the films of Peter Jackson, it’s one of those creepy, indestructible crystal balls scattered across the world of Middle-earth that allows the Eye of Sauron to warp the minds of any hapless fool of a Took (*cough* Pippin *cough*) unfortunate enough to steal a glance into its murky depths.

Playing Hyper Demon, the latest first-person shooter by Devil Daggers developer Sorath, is kind of like staring into one of those — but instead of mind-melting horrors, it has rocket jumps and a leaderboard.

Announced and released on Monday, Hyper Demon is not a sequel to Sorath’s aforementioned 2016 bullet-hell shooter, but it nonetheless represents an evolution of its core mechanics. In Devil Daggers, players assume the role of a mysterious protagonist who, after disturbing a mysterious dagger floating in space, is forced to survive against wave after wave of hellspawn for as long as possible. With an aesthetic and mechanics inspiring comparisons to ’90s arena shooters like Doom and Quake, Devil Daggers grew into a bona fide indie hit, racking up impressive review scores and slithering its way onto a number of publications’ best of the year lists.

Now, over six years after the release of its predecessor, Hyper Demon has been unleashed upon the world and, like a Cenobite out of hell, it has such sights to show you. While on the surface, the two games may appear near identical in their execution, it’s only after you throw yourself into the gauntlet, time after time, that the difference between the two becomes apparent.

While Devil Daggers was an endless FPS about holding out for as long as possible against an onslaught of demons, Hyper