Review — ‘Rise Of The Triad: Ludicrous Edition’ Is A Glorious (And Gory) Nostalgic Romp

At the dawn of the first person shooter era, there were many games vying for supremacy and notoriety. But for this reviewer, none landed in the way Rise of the Triad did. And thanks to publisher Apogee Entertainment, New Blood Interactive, and Nightdive Studios, the game rises again for Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition. Apogee graciously sent us a review code to dive back into our memories of the comically splatterific FPS. Does it hold up? Let’s find out.

The premise of the game is simple. You are a member of HUNT, an elite commando unit dispatched to deal with a group of cultists bent on destroying Los Angeles. Each member of HUNT is at the top of their game — although each has different stats — and has one key objective: kill every last baddie.

But what always set ROTT apart from, say, Doom, was its gleefully over the top presentation. Hit an enemy target with a bazooka round in just the right way and the unit explodes into pixelated gore … often accentuated by a loose eyeball. With the flamewall weapon, the same unit could burn up into a skeleton, which then comically falls to the ground with a suitably cartoonish sound effect. The entire concept of HUNT and its cultish adversaries also speaks to a sarcasm on the part of the original developers at Apogee to take the aggro tendencies of early FPS games like Doom and Duke Nukem to an absurd eleven.

That sensibility remains in the Ludicrous Edition. The pixel art also remains, but spruced up to scale from the 680×420 output of a 1990s 17″ CRT monitor to the 60″ widescreen 4K displays of 2023. Playing on a Playstation 5, the experience was surprising beautiful and, for the most part, smooth. We did notice a little juttering when a room full of bad guys opened up in one level, but we expect that drop off in frames likely occurred in the original version of the game. Sound also holds up to our memories, although it is deeper and richer coming through a 2.1 soundbar instead of the dinky little computer speakers we had back in the 486 and Pentium 1 days.

One nice addition is some rumble support for the PS5 controller. While not the full haptic experience of a current Spider-Man game, it still adds a new dimension for those who remember Rise of the Triad as a mouse-and-keyboard enterprise. It’s just enough to make the flamewall or the Hand of God feel new and fresh. That said, those used to playing the game on a PC may want to go into the menu options, bring the stick sensitivity down to practically nill, and toggle off the autorun option. We found that on default, controller inputs translated into too-fast movements on screen. We even wiped out on our first play after just one room until fiddling with the settings.

Other additions include cut content from the original game, a new story episode, cloud saves, and achievements. There is also a multiplayer mode — updating the old LAN party experience for the modern age — but we did not have a chance to experience it prior to press time.

Like many first person shooters of the era, there are plenty of challenges and difficulty settings to be found. But we’ll be honest: this reviewer used ROTT as stress relief in his high school days and gleefully turned on the “Woundless with Weapons” cheat to mow down the cultists. So after some time playing the game in a straight forward manner, we discovered the old cheats remain — once you recall the master code phrase to unlock them. The Ludicrous Edition leaves them unchanged. Woundless with Weapons does what it says on the tin and leads to some fun while watching enemies getting mowed down by environmental hazards. The basic flight and Hand of God cheats still work on a timer — but the ones that allow for infinite time are also available. And that’s before we even mention to codes for “Shroom Mode” or “Dog Mode.” The variety and cheakiness of the cheat codes leads us to believe Apogee always saw it as a legit form of play.  So we’re happy to know we can still get the best gear, be invulnerable, and crank some Metallica when returning to the game.

But even while being all-powerful in combat, Rise of the Triad offers some curious challenges as it remains, essentially, a game from the 1990s. Platforming is more slippery than a more modern title. It’s also possible to get lost in the labyrinthine maps as there is no mini-map on the screen. This aspect of the game is notable as, sometimes, trying to find the right key to open another aspect of a level can be a baffling experience.

All and all, though, Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition is a lovely remaster of one of our favorite FPSes from the dawn of the genre. It looks and sounds great on modern gear. It also allows us to tap back into those days when the best way to let off steam was to run and gun through endless corridors of pixelated 2D mobs threatening human freedom.

Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition is available on Playstation and Xbox platforms and on PC via Steam.