David Szymanski is clearly good at a lot of things, but I think his sharpest strength is his impeccable sense for pacing and timing (Iron Lung as a game is basically just a continuous raising of tension and dread for one perfectly timed payoff). Yes, the level design here is brilliant, it's dynamic and fluid while also being narratively rich and evocative. Yes, shooting is crunchy and satisfying, you're given a hefty arsenal and all the weapons feel good to fire (more of these neo-retro-shooters should have sniper rifles and swords, and this game is proof of such). But all of that is just the basis for the game to expertly thread it's building of tension and release. This careful attention to pacing is what I think really sets Dusk apart from other speedy retro shooters of it's kind. Where in a game like Quake, or Doom, or Dusk's New Blood sister game, Ultrakill, the player is made to feel ultra powerful and constantly in control, Dusk heavily leans into it's horror aspects to carefully switch between making the player feel completely helpless, and giving them the catharsis of the moments where they fell completely unstoppable and take out a whole room full of dudes. The parts of the game where you get to be the ultimate killing machine and rip and tear through hordes of assholes are made all the more meaningful by the parts where you're genuinely afraid of turning the next corner cause you can hear something crawling around in the dark, but can't see it yet. Dusk being genuinely scary at times makes it so much more intensely cathartic as an action experience. And it's the near flawless pacing that allows this to work so well.

In addition, the everything about the music and the visual presentation of the game serves to reinforce the rhythm of this pacing. The soundtrack dynamically shifting allows the big action parts to feel bigger and more intense, the way the game uses splashes of intense color to show the tone and environmental shifts is so well done, especially in later levels. Speaking of which, the last chapter of this game is just a successive series of some of the best FPS levels I've ever played? It's kinda fucked up how good they are. In general, levels where the game let's itself get more abstract and dreamlike are usually stunning highlights (Escher Labs and Homecoming are unforgettable for this reason). But broadly speaking, David's sense for striking visuals is almost equal in strength to his masterful weaving of pace and flow.

Of the many many many, many many many games Quake has been clear inspiration for over the years, this is one of the only ones I've seen that understands and successfully captures the expressive and tonal aspects of the game in addition to it's mechanical ones. It takes the singularly gloomy, often dread inducing visual and aesthetic language of the original Quake, and fleshes it out into something almost, vibrant. It creates the same synthesis of abstract expressionist early CG horror with razor sharp ultra fluid mechanics, and then shifts and adds worlds of color and the dynamic pacing to compliment it. Even among the current wave of 90s revival shooters made in this games wake, Dusk strikes me as very unique in what it achieves for this reason.

Also the boss fights are mostly bad. Except for Big John, I like Big John. He's funny.