Late to the party from its entry into early access back during the boomer shooter revival, Wrath was well worth the wait in spite of a few setbacks.

The Great
Wrath's sheer atmosphere and sense of scale is unparalleled for a game in its genre. Levels are huge, often broken up into several distinct segments, and the sheer artistry at play with its designs and architecture are something to behold. The game's low-poly 3D style and colorful textures paint a vivid masterpiece every ten minutes that you can't help but stop to admire. The game has three hub worlds, each with entirely distinct themes that give the player the feeling of traveling to ethereal, ancient worlds. Movement is ace in this game as well, thanks to a great sense of momentum.

The Good
While the game is built on a modified version of the original Quake engine, the game's combat pace has its own, unique flow. You will be bobbing and weaving between showers of projectiles just as often as you're backing away from hyper-aggressive melee attackers and walking around mines. Your weapons are fairly lethal, though larger enemies require you to mix and match your arsenal to take down quickly. Most fights can kill you in seconds if you aren’t crafty. Added into the mix are a set of inventory items, similar to the trappings available in Heretic. These artifacts are far more limited in availability, but can make an otherwise hopeless situation trivial with strategic use. The selection wheel slows down time while active, which makes them easy and convenient to use. Each episode also contains special powerup gates, which grant the player a unique ability to help traverse the map for a limited time. The game has a unique saving system as well, with a limited save item used in combination with checkpoint altars that keeps the action engaging as you progress through a map. The saving system can be disabled in favor of traditional quicksaves, if preferred.

The Bad
As beautiful as Wrath’s sprawling environments may be, the game heavily suffers from the lack of any kind of automap system. Certain levels, especially those taking place in catacombs and tombs, can be outright hellish to navigate without any way to track your progress. As dense as these levels are, I found myself taking breaks periodically throughout single levels, only to have to re-learn the map’s layout by the time I came back to it. Every now and then, especially in the third episode, there might be one specific path in a room of four that I’d overlook and end up circling around the map over and over until I noticed it. Either an automap or a guidance system like in Elden Ring or Quake 2’s remaster would alleviate this frustration. The soundtrack (or lack thereof) is another mildly low point for me. A lot of it is haunting ambience - which sets the mood well for when you’re exploring, but in the thick of combat with enemies surrounding you some of the thrill is lost without any sort of music to accompany the combat. Finally, I found the journal to be rather underwhelming. The Bestiary and Weapons pages only offer artwork, without any sort of notes or descriptions.

The Ugly
The controller support in this game feels very primitive by today’s standards. There’s no ability to remap your buttons, with only a few presets on offer instead. More damning is the lack of a weapon wheel - which has proven to be an absolute necessity for games like this with large arsenals and frantic combat. Something to be aware of if you plan on playing on Steam Deck, or just using a controller in general.

In Conclusion
Wrath is an incredible tribute to the art of level design, made up of a unique blend of gameplay elements that kept me coming back time after time until the end. It feels like a modern spiritual successor to the original Quake, and that alone should tell you everything you need to know. Easy recommendation, even if it can feel a little rough around the edges.