Guns of Eschaton is a newly revealed wild west soulslike FPS, and a posthumous release from Viktor Antonov, the celebrated art director behind Half-Life 2 and Dishonored who died in early 2025 at age 53.
What is Guns of Eschaton?
Antonov co-founded developer Eschatology Entertainment in 2022 alongside Dmytro Kostiukevych, Fuad Kuliev, and Boris Nikolaev, though the studio had yet to formally announce its debut project before now. That project is Guns of Eschaton, which the team is billing as the "world's first soulslike FPS", a description that immediately sets expectations for deliberate, punishing combat rather than a conventional run-and-gun shooter.
The setting is a wild-west-inspired world that's dying, layered with fantastical, Soulsian touches. Antonov's fingerprints are visible throughout: alongside the expected frontier towns, there are large, urban, industrial spaces and looming, near-brutalist structures reminiscent of his earlier work on Half-Life 2's City 17. The result avoids feeling like a generic grimdark western, mixing vibrant, sweeping prairies with striking skyboxes and some genuinely unusual creature and enemy designs.
Guns of Eschaton's combat and gunplay
The weapons on display are clearly modeled on 19th-century American firearms, fitting the setting's period inspiration. One standout mechanic lets players shoot a coin directly into an enemy, an Ultra Kill-style flourish that adds a flashy edge to otherwise grounded gunplay.
According to the game's Steam page, Guns of Eschaton is deliberately not built around twitch reflexes. It states plainly that "every bullet matters," "every gun has its own character," and "every monster has a weakness," and warns that instincts carried over from other shooters may not apply. That messaging lines up with the soulslike framing: expect deliberate positioning, careful ammo management, and enemy patterns that need to be learned rather than reacted to on the fly.
The game supports solo play throughout, but also offers full co-op for the entire campaign, plus a PvP mode. That combination, solo, co-op, and competitive multiplayer all built around the same soulslike FPS structure, is an ambitious spread for a debut title from a young studio.
The setting: a haunted frontier
Guns of Eschaton is explicitly set in America, specifically in the south, reimagined as what the developers describe as "a haunted frontier of ruined settlements, mythic roads, impossible machines, monstrous factions, and historical figures caught between legend and damnation." That framing raises an obvious question about how the game will handle the real, often brutal politics of the era it's drawing from, something the reveal doesn't address directly. Readers who follow how narrative games tackle sensitive historical settings will want to watch for more detail as Eschatology Entertainment shares further updates, alongside other upcoming releases tracked in our gaming coverage.
No release date has been attached to Guns of Eschaton yet, and the studio hasn't detailed a platform lineup, pricing, or a broader roadmap beyond the reveal trailer.
Why Guns of Eschaton is a notable debut
Beyond the gameplay pitch, Guns of Eschaton carries extra weight as one of Antonov's final creative contributions. His visual language, dense, oppressive, and unmistakably industrial even within fantastical or historical settings, shaped some of the most memorable environments in modern gaming, and this reveal gives players a last look at that sensibility applied to an entirely new world. Fans curious how the finished game holds up against other genre highlights can expect early hands-on impressions and reviews once a release window is confirmed.
For now, Guns of Eschaton exists as a striking announcement trailer and a handful of promised systems: soulslike difficulty, western-inspired weapons, and a fully realized co-op and PvP structure layered on top. Whether Eschatology Entertainment can deliver on all of it remains an open question until more gameplay details, and that release date, arrive.
Frequently asked questions
What platforms will Guns of Eschaton release on?
Eschatology Entertainment hasn't confirmed platforms or a release date for Guns of Eschaton as of the game's reveal.
Does Guns of Eschaton have multiplayer?
Yes. The game can be played entirely solo, but it also supports full co-op throughout the campaign and includes a PvP mode.
