Free Wolfenstein-inspired boomer shooter lets you obliterate the Nazis who stole your dog

What's worse than a Nazi? A Nazi that's stolen your dog. That's the scenario you find yourself in at the start of Darkenstein 3D, a new boomer shooter with a retro feel that's a love letter to the early Wolfenstein games. Filled with vengeful fury at losing your bestest boi, it's time to go on a rampage - a rather unusual rampage, at that. While we've seen plenty of these projects appear in recent times, harking back to the good ol' days of Doom, there's one major difference with Darkenstein 3D: it's totally free.

In an unusual move for any single-player project, solo developer 'Rowye' wants you to pay them absolutely nothing for their new FPS game. Even with Darkenstein 3D being picked up by publisher Microprose just a couple of weeks out from launch, the expectation is still that the base game will be free. It's not the longest, meatiest experience around - while I'm yet to give it a go myself, other folks' playthroughs are clocking in at around three to four hours. But even if you can blast through it in an evening, that doesn't mean it's not a great game.

This floaty, cheesy, explosive boomer shooter not only gives you plenty of weapons in your fight against those dog-stealing Nazis, but you also have a companion. Feeding into Darkenstein's general weirdness, this companion is a rat that you can strap grenades and mines to… Clearly this rodent is made of tough stuff.

Given its surprising status as a free Steam game, there are plans to make some money in the future, but Rowye promises there will be no microtransactions. Instead, you can buy the game's soundtrack, or you can spend a few dollars on some story expansions that will be arriving in the future.

"We are now looking at a longer-lived game, with more content to come," the developer says following the deal with Microprose. "DLCs will not be bite-sized and we will not nickel and dime you. A first, smaller, expansion will be released so that you can, if you want, support the dev (me! hah), since the game is free. After that, I'll keep building longer story expansions, with (hopefully) a few more people joining the project."

Darkenstein 3D is out right now on Steam and is totally free to play. Download it here if you fancy giving it a go.

If you love its retro feel, you'll probably love some of our picks for the best classic PC games. Alternatively, here are some of the best gaming headsets so that you can blast that soundtrack out in perfect quality.

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