Killing Time: Resurrected

About Killing Time: Resurrected

Killing Time: Resurrected brings back a first-person shooter that 3DO first released on its 3DO console in 1995 and ported to PC in 1996. Nightdive Studios and Ziggurat Interactive released the remaster on October 17, 2024, on Steam and GOG for Windows, PS4 and PS5, Xbox and Switch.

The story is set in the early 1930s. You play a student of Egyptology who ends up trapped on the estate of the wealthy heiress Tess Conway on the island of Matinicus. Conway held a ritual to gain eternal life with the help of an ancient Egyptian Water-Clock; it backfired, her high-society friends vanished, and the estate filled with monsters. Your job is to find and destroy the Water-Clock and undo the curse.

The whole game is one large, non-linear map: over 45 areas across the mansion, its grounds and outbuildings, with no loading between them. You hunt keys to open new parts of it, much like the shooters of the early 1990s, and shoot a great deal on the way: clowns, duck hunters, gangsters, cursed kitchen staff and beasts come in numbers, and ammunition for the revolvers, shotgun and tommy gun is plentiful. Enemies you kill stay dead, so a cleared area stays cleared.

What sets it apart is its ghosts. Over 50 live-action video sequences, triggered by small ghosts you find on the ground, show the estate's guests acting out scenes from the past. Seen out of order, they piece together what happened at the Conway estate. The enemies are digitized actors in costume from the 3DO version, mixed with monsters and weapons from the PC version for the first time, which gives the game a strange, slightly off look.

The remaster runs on Nightdive's KEX engine with mouselook, redone lighting, upscaled textures and sprites, high resolutions and frame rates, key binding and full controller support, plus restored cut content such as the pool house and a shipwreck.

Critics liked the level design and the ghost story; some found the key hunting slow and the combat easy. It is gory and grotesque but more a horror romp than a slow scare. It suits players who liked Clive Barker's Undying or newer retro shooters such as CULTIC and DUSK, and anyone curious about an odd corner of 1990s horror games.

How to play Killing Time: Resurrected

1. Buy the game on Steam, GOG, PlayStation, Xbox or Switch and start a new game from the main menu.
2. Pick a difficulty and set your controls; the remaster has key binding, mouselook and full controller support.
3. Explore the island estate, picking up weapons, ammunition and health as you go.
4. Walk up to the small ghosts on the ground to play their video scenes; they tell the story of the Conway estate.
5. Find keys and items to open new parts of the mansion and grounds, and work toward the Water-Clock.

Tips

• Search side rooms and outbuildings: the island is one connected map, and keys and supplies are spread through it.
• Enemies stay dead, so clearing an area properly makes coming back through it easy.
• If you run out of shotgun shells, switch to the tommy gun; ammunition is common across the island.
• Try the sprite toggle in the options to see the original 3DO or PC character art.

Questions