When a studio is called Double Barrel Games, you pretty much know what you’re in for: Hellbreak. It’s a first-person shooter that goes full arena mode, somewhere between Quake and the Doom reboot. Version 1.0 is out now.

Come on, the name Double Barrel Games made you smirk too, didn’t it? It’s a glorious name, especially because the people behind it clearly have lead on the brain. Not from headshots, mind you; more as a very specific area of expertise. 🙂

The guys have now launched Hellbreak 1.0, and if it looked just a little more polished, you could show it to me at a glance and I’d probably believe it was a new Quake.

Because yes, Hellbreak absolutely goes for the throat. And, as you’d expect from this kind of game, it does all of that strictly in single-player. I’m still not entirely sure why, though, because wave-based combat is also made for chunky co-op brawls. Serious Sam has taught us that much, among others.

"Whatever": officially, Hellbreak describes itself as a mix of arena shooter, FPS, and survivor-like roguelite. Fair enough. Naturally, it doesn’t bother you with a big story or any other long-winded chatter—but there is a setup, and I actually find it pretty interesting. Let’s get into it.

World War soldier in hell

Hellbreak casts you as a soldier "from the World Wars" and sends you straight to hell. I would’ve expected just the one World War, but apparently our hero is extremely old. Anyway, his goal is to save his soul from eternal damnation by taking on demon hordes in brutal arenas and earning the favor of demon lords. Hm. Guess they’re not all that attached to their minions?

In these arenas, the fast-paced shooter also mixes its wave fights with bullet-hell elements, in case that means anything to you. More recent examples of that sort of thing would be The Returnal and Saros; basically, you’ll often have an absurd number of projectiles flying at your face, sometimes in surprisingly smart formations.

Naturally, you answer with a whole arsenal of guns. The game may call them demonic, but most of them still bring the usual suspects to mind. You know the drill: shotgun, SMG, minigun, explosive boomsticks, and so on. There is a bit of magic, though, since you can whip flames around you, summon totems, and even turn into a powerful spectral form to make life even worse for your enemies.

It barely gets more old-school than this

The combo system fits the frantic pace nicely: keep landing good hits—or specific ones—and your score keeps climbing. Yes, really: a score. Just like in those old arcade games, where bullet hell got its start in the first place. Obviously, those points aren’t there for decoration, because there’s a score attack mode and global leaderboards, so you can compare your demon-shredding performance with everyone else’s.

According to the description, Hellbreak features 19 tools of destruction in total, alongside weapons, spells, curses, more than 150 blessings, over 15 enemy types, and multiple bosses. What I find pretty striking here is the price: 15 dollars. With repeatable runs in the mix, that gives you a fair bit of game for your money.

Right now, Hellbreak is only available on PC. Controller support is in, at least for Xbox controllers—so who knows, maybe console versions will follow at some point. As always, success will probably be the deciding factor there.