New Horror Game Combines Classic Doom with Resident Evil

Fans of classic Doom and Resident Evil would do well to pay attention to a new survival horror game coming from a solo developer on Steam that seems to be drawing heavily from the two beloved franchises.

Blighten shows strong Doom and Resident Evil inspirations

It can be argued that Doom and Resident Evil are two of the most influential game franchises to come out of the 1990s, as both of them refined and legitimized their respective genres and are still going strong today with fresh installments like Doom: The Dark Ages and Resident Evil Requiem. Now, one solo developer is looking to bring together elements from both these iconic series into a new survival horror FPS named Blighten.

Before developer Blight Software turned it into its own full game, Blighten originated as a mod for Doom, and Blight has been refining it and adding an array of classic real-world weapons to the game ever since, like the SMG-9 and SPAS-12 shotgun.

Blighten playtest is live now on steam

Perhaps the most obvious up-front inspiration when looking at a screenshot or one of the many brief clips Blight Software has up on its official X account, is Blighten‘s Doom-inspired retro pixel art style. The game has a distinct “boomer shooter” feel to its visuals, down to its walking, firing, and reload animations. According to Blighten‘s Steam page, all of its animations and enemy sprites are hand-drawn. While the game’s 2D pixel graphics feel like classic early-90s Doom, the lighting and textures on the guns and the protagonist’s hands give the game a little bit of a slightly more modern look.

Blighten‘s Resident Evil inspirations aren’t as immediately apparent as its Doom-like elements are, mostly because they don’t have as much to do with the game’s graphics or art style. Instead, Blighten‘s Steam page mentions an “extensive and highly explorable map” and encourages players to poke around in every room. Plus, Blight Software hints that players will need to take care with how they expend ammo and resources. Intricate, puzzle-like map design and anxiety-inducing resource management is a big part of Resident Evil‘s DNA. If Blighten’s environments are designed in such a way, Resident Evil fans who check the game out would surely be in for a treat.

If Blighten becomes a big hit on Steam when it releases, it’ll be well worth wondering whether Blight Software has plans to bring the game to consoles, as the two franchises that have inspired it have found broader audiences on modern Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo consoles in the decades since their debuts in the 90s. For now, gamers can get in on Blighten‘s playtest that just recently went live on Steam.

Blighted is coming to PC in 2026.

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