By Jordan Campbell As a 41-year-old bloke who has been a gamer pretty much all of my life, I have been blessed with several eras of gaming. From the moment I got my very first Atari, I’ve been hooked. There is one particular phase of video games that was insanely good, and that was the first-person shooters in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I boast about it all the time, but I was a top-ten player in TimeSplitters: Future Perfect online on the Playstation 2, and yes, there were more than eleven players. Alongside this, though, games like Red Faction, Unreal Tournament and games of that vibe kicked ass.
SPAWL Zero is about to launch on Xbox Series X/S on 8th September 2026 and features Xbox Play Anywhere functionality. Buy it once and access it anywhere you can play your Xbox library of games. Developed by MAETH and published by Kwalee, this game draws inspiration from the golden era of early-00s first-person shooters.
Now, I went in totally blind with SPRAWL Zero, and I instantly found myself comparing how it looked to Half-Life, which is never a bad thing. I wasn’t lucky enough to play the original SPRAWL, but I kind of wish I had. What I love here is that its a good old back-to-basics shooter that isn’t overly complex; it doesn’t require you to constantly tinker with loadouts, run along walls or any of that jazz. You pick up weaponry throughout your gameplay, and once the ammo is expended from that gun, you dispose of it. You can either drop it or literally throw it into the faces of your enemies, and you get an immediate sense of gratification.
As you rifle through guns quickly, you can always pick up something different. Constantly rotating through gear allows you to experience the tiers of rarity on weapons, which are colour-coded. You can trigger bullet-time slow-motion physics for a limited time, letting you pull off precision multi-kills and disarm foes. With a gun range of weapons from semi-automatic rifles to rocket launchers, you’re never short of firepower to play around with. If you find yourself short, then you can always use your power first to obliterate what’s in front of you into a pile of blood splatter.
I found myself getting a little lost in some of the levels, but there is a handy way to ping the direction where you need to head. I appreciated that it doesn’t always hold your hand, but a nudge in the right direction is sometimes needed. It surprised me at how in-depth and how vast the 11 levels on offer are; I don’t recall them being this large back in that era. There are moments where you may have to backtrack, but that didn’t hamper the experience for me as I was surveying and absorbing how great everything looked; there is some impressive work here.
I’d liken the visuals to the Half-Life and FEAR Series of games. Environment design leans heavily into a Cyberpunk-esque aesthetic with sprinklings of neon amongst industrial settings. Running around had me remembering all the classic arena shooters I’d played in the past; this felt like those times. Everything is perfectly polished as well, and the game handles like a dream. Part of me half expected some clunk here and there, as going back to older shooters now, they don’t age particularly well. This isn’t the case here, and throughout my nine or so hours working through the levels, I didn’t experience a single hiccup on Xbox Series X, and I’d imagine the Series S would handle this with no problem.
When it comes to the audio design, it wraps around well with the excellent work done with the visuals. With a soundtrack that drives your adrenaline through the intensity, it mimics the chaos on screen magnificently. Weapons sound punchy, and the feedback is heard as well as felt when blasting through clusters of enemies. Overall, a superbly presented package which is well optimised to cater to players on all devices through the Xbox Play Anywhere feature.
SPRAWL Zero is bloody fantastic, and I had an absolute blast with every second of gameplay. I genuinely felt as if I had walked back in time to my late teens, and it was a rollercoaster of emotions, if I am being completely honest. Not only is the game excellent, but it was like reliving the experience of playing with those visuals and familiar mechanics, just lapping it all up.
If you love your retro shooters or just want to walk into the past for a few lengthy sessions, this game has it all. Tons of weapons, a big splash of gore, bullet-time and a hard-hitting soundtrack that all blend to be the best love letter to the golden era of shooters. You’ll get at least a good ten hours of gameplay out of this one, and there is a new game plus mode if you want to extend your time with it even further.
If you fancy picking up a copy for yourself on Xbox Series X/S, then you can do so HERE
SPRAWL Zero Review – A Return to Classic FPS Gameplay
+ What works
- Fast, fluid and satisfying gunplay and movement mechanics
- Visually flawless even when everything on screen is chaos
- Bullet-time precision has to be on this list
- Environment design is fantastic with multiple routes throughout
- Xbox Play Anywhere enabled
− What holds it back
- Sad when I had ticked everything off
- Available on
- Xbox Series X|S · Xbox PC · Windows PC · Cloud Gaming
- Developer
- MAETH
- Publisher
- Kwalee
- Release date
- 8 September 0026
- Age rating
- PEGI 18
- Price
- £20.99 / €24.99 / $24.99
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