REVIEW: ‘At Sundown’ (PC)

At Sundown, is developed by Mild Beast Games and published by Versus Evil. It is a top-down, hide-and-seek, arena shooter with a fairly simple concept; stay hidden and kill your opponents. The first person to reach the kill threshold is the winner. The game is simple enough to understand but mastering it will take some time. The controls in this game are smooth. The default movement is, mouse and keyboard, key binds are WASD and you use the mouse to attack. However, At Sundown, does offer a full controller support, so if you’re more inclined to play that way, just simply plug in and play.

Music in the game is smooth and relaxing despite the main focus of the game being more chaotic and frantic. The slower pace of the music allows you to enjoy a calming aspect on top of the fast pace action going on in game.

Though you can’t really see your character model as you’re in a top down view point, the graphics shine best in the maps. The maps in At Sundown are gorgeous and full of background hazards as well, such as lights that expose you as you stand in that area. My personal favorite map is, Centrifuge, which is one of the Factory maps. It’s my favorite map because of the large size, narrow corridors, and lasers that will ping you when you’re struck by them, which can trigger a bit of panic, because you’re exposed for about 3 seconds.

As I mentioned before, you stay hidden, try to track your enemies, kill them, and go back into hiding until it’s time to strike again and this series of events is what makes At Sundown a lot of fun. However, if you feel that jumping into the game would be too hard, you can check out their Training mode. Training mode gives you a full run down of the concepts of the game from movement to weapon use. There are three rankings to completing each training, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Upon completion within the time constraints, you’re awarded with a medal and experience towards unlocks in the game, such as weapons, maps, and other game modes.

Multiplayer is handled amazingly in At Sundown. The online modes are varied and challenging, but what has me the most excited is Local Play. Being able to have friends hop on and play without needing to have separate keys is nice. Plus what gamer doesn’t enjoy having chaotic moments and trash talking locally? The way At Sundown was developed it came off as a party game and Local Play solidifies that. It is coming soon to the PS4 but hopefully, it hits all consoles soon since they would be amazingly on those platforms because of the Local Play feature.

If you are a player who enjoys earning trophies or achievements, you are in luck. At Sundown has an achievement system already built in. The game has a nice array of achievements to obtain from simply playing the game to getting X kills with all the weapons in the game. So if you’re looking for bragging rights, then you’re in the right place. If that’s not enough in regards to bragging and want to show off the numbers, At Sundown, also has stat tracking for those who want to see just how well they’re playing. You can track kills, Kill/Death ratio, favorite weapon or map, and more in the stats menu, which is located in Profile.

Overall, At Sundown, is a fun, fast, and frantic game with a simple yet hard to master concept and smooth controls. The local play feature is a great addition along side the casual and ranked online modes. I do hope to see this game come to consoles in the near future because Local Play will make a it strong selling point to be a party game that I feel everyone should be able to experience.

At Sundown is available on Steam.