David Szymanski, creator of Dusk and one of the chief architects of the retro FPS revival, grew up playing games like Lemmings and Oil’s Well on the family PC. Among these family favourites was a formative first-person game. But it probably isn’t the one you’d expect: “The most foundational one I can remember is playing Myst for the first time,” says the New Blood designer. “That was the first game I remember really getting super into—being able to enter another world and explore it in first-person.”

Initially a designer of short horror games, Szymanski’s breakout came in 2018 with Dusk, an homage to classic ’90s shooters like Doom and Quake. Following Dusk’s success, Szymanski returned to developing shorter games, including the hit submarine horror game Iron Lung, which was adapted into a movie by YouTuber Markiplier earlier this year.