Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty Preview: Touching Cloth

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty. Would I rather be watching it or playing it? The reason for the former is it reminds me of late-night animations like MTV Oddities, or perhaps more recent, Adult Swim programming. That’s a massive compliment, by the way.

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The demo was a mix of FPS with one of those Gas Station Simulator type things; going about doing monotonous chores like removing graffiti off a wall. With the simulator-based games, it’s fun and often therapeutic, here’s, it’s most definitely a chore.

The religious side of the game is likely to offend before even playing it, but this is essentially a tongue-in-cheek sandbox of mayhem, and despite having two main factions of Shatanists and Christianists, it’s your typical action-packed first-person experience, with a chilli-eating contest at the route of the carnage.

Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty Preview

Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty is presented as a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary. Between objectives, we’ll get talking heads of the numerous and colourful characters in the game, starting with an influencer ‘an exchange on money? But it’s free promotion!?’, a vampire priest and lots more.

Set in the village of San de Ville, we arrive on a bus heading to a chilli-eating contest. Serious stuff. We’re introduced to the local Christianists and understand that there’s been an increase of Shatanists in the area, spray-painting the place up and cracking some skulls with some pretty intimidating melee weapons.

But before we can embrace them with our love (hitting them back repeatedly), we have to fulfil our duties of spreading the word, straightening out crucifixes, removing said graffiti and getting drunk in preparation for an exorcism or two. If this is what it’s like to be a priest, Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty, by Asmodev and Ultimate Games, ticks all the boxes.

Take Me To Church

From a first-person view, you’ll run around the fairly large play area of the church, residential areas and the woods, following markers or perhaps having a wander. The playable stage isn’t overwhelmingly large, but should you feel inclined, you can pray for a car at designated hotspots, and they’ll spawn for you to drive. It’s a bit like Far Cry in that sense. Well, minus the praying.

Combat is mostly meleeing, and it works very well – very frantic and visceral with the claret splattering about like nobodies business. Ideal for a vamp. However, this element was mildly annoying as you’ll get rushed by three or four Shatanists, but if you run around one, by the time they swing, the others will have hit them too. Rinse and repeat and combat is very easy at this stage.

Additionally, if walking is too much of an effort, your character can use the power of prayer to encourage Christianists to follow you and do God’s beatings on your behalf. They’re… ok, and a good way of taking the sting out of any considerable threat, but you’ll probably have to finish them off, then run around a house looking for totems when doing an exorcism.

Is This Thing On?

I like Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty – it’s fun and aware of its take on the genre – both FPS and simulators, but what I like most about it is perhaps counter to the actual gameplay. The visuals in this game are brilliant – that is, it’s my kind of taste, and I’m a bit of a slave to cutscenes for story and character development.

There are plenty of sequences here (that can be skipped if you’re not a fan). They don’t necessarily shed much light on the characters or story, for that matter, but there’s just a tease of finding out a bit more that has me looking back at the release date – when can we play this in full?

It’s almost entirely voice acted in Polish with English subtitles, and I liked this. Orlok was a standout, and should this come with localisation in the future, I’ll stick with the original soundtrack with English subtitles (unless it gets complicated and miss key facts during the action – Xuan-Yuan Sword 7, for example).

So yeah, this isn’t a review, just a few thoughts on Priest Simulator: Heavy Duty. If the content has piqued your interest and you’ve already seen the trailer, and it hasn’t put you off, chances are you’ll enjoy this. Again, the presentation, where all the characters are wooden mannequins wearing masks and other attire, is stunning, and the mockumentary style interviews brilliant. 

Note that it’s ‘coming soon’, so in the meantime, download the demo and add it to your wishlist and make up your opinion from that.