The Last Exterminator demo playthrough (Realms Deep 2023 / Steam Next Fest Oct 2023)
2This FPS absolutely wears its Duke Nukem 3D inspirations on its sleeve... and manages to do so while impressing in every regard on a custom engine.
The bad news is this demo only contains one level - but don't be fooled; it can easily take at least half an hour for a first playthrough, then half an hour _more_ to find more secrets. The good news is I therefore had plenty of time to check out all 3 difficulty levels, and I'm glad I did, because there's a ton of detailed adjustments in terms of not only enemy numbers and types, but also weapon and resource distribution. Hard may be a bit unforgiving between tougher enemy placements and fewer health pickups; easy is extremely toned down from both normal and hard, so if normal gives you trouble, easy could still be perfectly viable.
The difficulty adjustments aren't the only thing that's detailed, though. The entire environment in the demo map is extremely impressive and is packed with secrets (and easter eggs) that encourage exploration; I definitely didn't find them all. This demo really focused on absolutely nailing everything that's on display - something that not nearly enough demos do.
There's also a ton of attention to detail in the game's menus. This is one of the only games I've seen that actually includes the same options in multiple places, so that options that could conceivably fall under multiple categories can actually be found under each one of them. There's already a strong assortment of accessibility options as well (including an entire accessibility submenu). If I had one nit to pick here, it's that I'd really like to be able to incrementally tone down screen flashes and shake rather than only be able to turn them off entirely.
If you're a fan of early/mid-90s FPSes, especially DN3D, absolutely give this demo a try and wishlist the game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/811760/The_Last_Exterminator/