Dusk is getting a free HD ‘remaster’ around its anniversary

The fifth anniversary of the revered retro-shooter DUSK is being celebrated in the best way possible: with a remaster. Publisher New Blood Interactive has just announced that DUSK will get the HD treatment to mark the occasion, with a lovely teaser trailer to accompany the news. The HD version of DUSK will be fully optional and made available within a couple of months, around December, according to the devs themselves.

The team behind DUSK has taken it upon itself to really make the HD version of the game special, according to the announcement. Rather than simply upgrading the base game for all owners, which might not even be desirable in the first place, devs are releasing DUSK HD as an optional download instead. “The HD models, textures, weapons, etc will all be available on the Steam Workshop as free downloads and not integrated into the base game until you install them!” Stellar news for those who enjoy DUSK‘s hyper-retro aesthetic, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t take more than a passing glance at the HD “remaster” to see that it’s not quite as HD as one might expect in this day and age. That, too, is by design.

DUSK HD is coming this December

Even though these new assets are certainly higher-def than the original game’s default assets, it’s clear as day that they, too, are relatively retro in their own right. In short, instead of looking like a game that had to have come out in the mid-90s, DUSK HD looks like something straight out of the early 2000s. Devs claim that they’ve reworked all of the game’s assets to support this new visual style, meaning it will be a great opportunity for a new playthrough, even if you’re a DUSK veteran.

According to Dave Oshry, head of New Blood Interactive, this entire project started its life as a series of “‘HD’ remakes of the game’s weapons and enemies to put up as packs on the upcoming Steam Workshop.” In other words, initially a relatively simple project.

“We were then approached by a community member named ‘Garumin’ who was inspired by what he saw and wanted to remake everything else,” said Oshry, via PC Gamer. “Every texture, every model, every asset. It was an insane task. But he’d already gotten started… and his work was… good?”

DUSK HD has, therefore, been growing in size and complexity for some time, and thanks to the efforts of Garumin—who has since been brought onboard and paid for his work—nearly every DUSK asset has been fully remade. Oshry claims that Garumin has even gone so far as to touch up old beta assets and weapons that never made their way into the original DUSK. Players can expect “changing texel densities, redoing textures, redoing weapon models and textures, redoing weapon models again, redoing enemy models, redoing enemy textures,” and more. “It’s… a lot,” explains Oshry.

While the new teaser trailer for DUSK HD is rather short and sweet, devs have already confirmed that a more in-depth comparison is coming soon. More specifically, “around Halloween,” followed by the full release of the HD asset pack(s). Vague stuff, but as the whole shebang is supposed to celebrate the fifth anniversary of DUSK, which came out on December 18, 2018, that should give you a rough idea of what to expect.