#599: REKKR: Sunken Land
Nordic fantasy shooter seeks to wreck the competition
Initial release: July 10, 2018 (mod version)/October 11, 2021 (commercial)
Developer: Matthew “Revae” Little and the Doom community
Platform: PC (total conversion for Doom)
If there’s two things about Doom that have been low-key but important fixtures in the community almost since the beginning, it’s total conversions and dark fantasy. 1994 saw the release of both Aliens TC, the first total conversion (arguably not total by any modern definition but it fit the description at the time) and Heretic, a commercial game using Doom’s engine and in many ways being a fantasy reskin of it. Fantasy in particular is perhaps the defining feature of Doom and related creations, even moreso than its sci-fi trappings; the upcoming Doom: The Dark Ages only cements that fact. It’s within the context of this legacy that REKKR exists, and it’s this legacy that REKKR builds on.
REKKR is as pure a total conversion as it gets — everything has been replaced, from weapons to monsters to decoration objects. It’s effectively a whole new game, and well might it be, as developer Matthew Little saw fit to release an updated version of the game as a commercial product — more on that later. With three canonical episodes and a fourth bonus episode, REKKR presents the following story: you are a rekkr, a warrior from some nameless Nordic country. Returning home from a failed campaign, you discover your homeland in flames, overrun with walking corpses and monsters from the realm of the dead, and your wife and child murdered. Demanding revenge against the dead, and the monstrous king who unleashed them upon his kingdom, you wage war across first the countryside, then the capitol city, and finally the realm of the dead itself. Each episode has its own vibe, but by the end of the first episode, it becomes clear that this world isn’t quite the generic medieval fantasy we expect it to be, but more of a magitek setting that seems to power itself on mysterious flying mana sprites. What’s odd, then, is that the fourth episode’s penultimate level seems to directly imply that this is indeed Earth — perhaps an alternate history, or even a glitch in the timestream, soon to be undone in the finale.
Being a true total conversion, complete with extensive DEHACKED magic, this isn’t a 1:1 conversion of Doom. Importantly, it de-emphasizes hitscan — only 3 out of your 8 weapons use it, and only the final boss of the fourth episode uses it against you. Your starting weapons are just your fists and a bow; the bow fires weaponized souls, which you get by killing the two main “zombie” types who populate the maps; they drop red souls, which last only a couple of seconds before fading. The faster-firing soul launcher occupies slot 4, though it seems to do slightly less damage? Don’t quote me on that. In between is the steelshot launcher, an oversized, hand-cranked firearm that functions like the Doom shotgun and eats two units of ammo per shot, with a lengthy reload sequence. The rune staff replaces the rocket launcher, the runes it fires behaving more like grenades with a definite downward arc. Rather than exploding on contact, they do a small amount of damage on impact then drop the ground, at which point they explode. The holy relic occupies the plasma rifle slot, and has a similar cooldown when you release the fire button, but otherwise functions like a weaker shotgun, firing hitscan shots in a row as opposed to the random cloud of the steelshot. The Blessing of the Gods is basically the BFG without the windup or plasma ball, making it potentially powerful if only ammo wasn’t so limited. You also get a heavy axe as the chainsaw replacement, though it’s not nearly as useful.
Your monster roster also doesn’t really map cleanly onto the Doom bestiary, frequently making use of obscure or unused portions of the Doom code and assets. (DEHACKED is magic like that.) Former humans and grotesques are faceless, naked corpses that wander about and drop souls; the grotesques throw fireballs at you. Husks are tall, grey humanoids who slash at you; you can spot the tougher ones by the blood on their limbs. Imps aren’t the ones you know, but instead they’re floating, toothy heads that spit fireballs at you. There’s big eyeballs who float around, ram into you lost soul-style, and can resurrect enemies. Skeleturrets just spit fireballs endlessly at you — even if you’re behind cover — until destroyed. Sorrows behave a lot like cacodemons, big fleshy heads that throw homing fireballs at you — though the arc is a lot lazier than the revenant missile’s. The upper tier of non-boss enemies features former dukes, massive bloated corpses who throw waves of angry souls at you (think the Wraithverge from Hexen, but without the homing element,) skelly bellies, giant skeletons that spew eyeballs, and skelespiders, enormous skull-like spiders who also spew eyeballs upon death, and tree beasts, big beefgate monsters who function a lot like barons of hell. There’s also the bosses: the former king, who appears at the end of the second episode, and functions a lot like the former duke but with more health, eventually becoming a giant skelly belly upon death; the Death Raven, the ultimate source of the evil who faces you at the end of the third episode and again as a mid-boss towards the end of the fourth; and finally, the Gardien, a mysterious, Egyptian-flavored boss who you fight in the game’s finale. There’s even a bit of wildlife: crows who take flight when they see you, jackalopes who wander the maps (and who I went out of my way to protect,) pink jackalopes who will tear you apart, and cute little doggos who need to be led to a doghouse to unlock the secret level for the episode.
With such a complete change of assets, REKKR is unrecognizable as a Doom mod; the community recognized this, and it was suggested repeatedly that it be sold as a commercial product. To this end, a few years after its initial release, Little would create the fourth episode (replacing the bonus episode,) tweak the initial maps a bunch, and put the whole thing out on digital distros like Steam as REKKR: Sunken Land. The fourth episode centers around a large facility built over what appears to be Yggdrasil, the mythical tree of Norse legend and — it seems — a gateway into another reality altogether. I couldn’t tell you what all has changed between the mod release and the commercial version, though Little would later put out another bonus episode, the VR-themed “VR-R3KKR.” The commercial release does however come bundled with a standalone copy of GZDoom (I’m not sure what version it’s based on, as it shows as “unknown version” in the console.) This version comes with some pre-made settings such as an enforced lack of mouselook, though it does feature the expanded choice of sector light modes that was recently removed. If you find this to be a bit constraining, and/or you want more out of your REKKR, there’s always the REKBONUS.WAD mod — dev-approved! — that adds more features to the options menu and reinstates the bonus episode in the episode select.
On the whole I’m a little unsure how I feel about REKKR. While I love the Build-esque vibe of some of the levels — “Dripstone Wharf” is probably my favorite level for this reason — I found the combat to leave me a bit cold. The new weapons lack any real oomph, and I don’t feel like the monster bestiary is really used effectively. It took me a while to muddle through the whole four canonical episodes, in large part because it’s oddly not as engaging as I would have hoped. The third episode especially drops all pretense of Doomcute and goes for an abstract style that’s reminiscent of the original Doom’s “Inferno” episode in theme and execution. I guess if I had to compare it to anything I’d say it’s closest to Heretic in overall style and execution.
That’s not to say I had a bad time with REKKR; I would still highly recommend it to fans of boomer shooters and especially fantasy boomer shooters. I’m just saying that perhaps it’s a little too limited by DEHACKED, a little too rooted in legacy.
-june❤
REKKR can be purchased on Steam and gog.com.
Map notes can be read on my boomer shooter blog.
