There is something wonderfully unhinged about a first-person shooter that looks at the usual arsenal of military rifles, pistols and explosives and decides that what players really need is a collection of biomechanical nightmares and modified surgical instruments. Why settle for another battlefield when you can carve your way through a ruined world with weapons that look as though they belong in a surgeon’s operating theatre after a particularly unpleasant experiment? eXcise, developed by Spanish studio WildSphere, takes that gloriously grotesque idea and builds an unapologetically aggressive shooter around it. Combining the breakneck pace associated with classic 1990s FPS games with the developer’s established interest in body horror, it promises a blood-soaked journey through a world where humanity has been dismantled, rebuilt and left to rot.
The story begins with what should have been a routine inspection, but quickly descends into a medical nightmare. Captured by a demented surgeon, the protagonist is mutilated, reconstructed and stripped of their humanity before waking to discover that the world has been transformed into an apocalyptic wasteland populated by deformed experimental creatures. The surgeon has done more than destroy one person’s life. His actions have helped change the planet itself, leaving a trail of biomechanical horrors in his wake. With the laboratory abandoned and vengeance the only thing left to live for, the stage is set for a particularly nasty escape into a world that has become every bit as monstrous as the person responsible for it.
It is a premise that wears its influences openly, but there is enough personality in the combination of surgical horror and arcade shooting to make eXcise an intriguing proposition. WildSphere previously explored disturbing territory through Oxide Room 104 and Oxide Room 208, but this is a very different kind of nightmare. Instead of relying on slow-building dread and the vulnerability associated with survival horror, the game shifts towards speed, aggression and the satisfaction of overwhelming enemies before they can overwhelm you. It is a bold change of pace, and one that gives the studio an opportunity to explore its grotesque imagination from a much more explosive angle.
Gameplay: Keep Moving or Become Another Experiment
The defining characteristic of eXcise is its commitment to fast, relentless combat. This is not a shooter that wants players to spend long periods hiding behind cover, carefully examining every corner or patiently waiting for an enemy to wander into view. Its philosophy is closer to classic arena shooters, which rewarded quick reactions, constant movement and an instinctive understanding of the battlefield. Standing still for too long is an invitation to disaster, so success depends on staying mobile, finding opportunities to attack and ensuring the creatures around you never have the luxury of controlling the pace.
That approach gives the combat an immediate sense of urgency. Every encounter becomes a test of how effectively you can manage the space around you while keeping your weapons trained on the threats ahead. Movement is not simply a way of travelling between enemies; it is part of the defensive and offensive toolkit, helping you avoid incoming attacks while creating opportunities to strike back. For players who grew up with the frantic rhythm of classic PC shooters, this emphasis on momentum should feel reassuringly familiar. For those accustomed to more deliberate modern FPS games, however, the relentless pace may require a change in mindset.
The difference between a shooter that is merely fast and one that feels genuinely satisfying lies in how its combat systems work together. Speed needs to be matched by responsive controls, readable enemy behaviour and weapons that feel worthwhile to use. The premise of eXcise places enormous importance on those fundamentals, because its encounters are designed around sustained aggression rather than prolonged tactical pauses. The supplied information establishes that the game draws inspiration from classic shooters, although it does not provide enough detail to assess the precision of its movement physics or the balance of individual encounters. Even so, its commitment to a high-velocity approach gives it a clear identity in a genre that can sometimes feel overly comfortable repeating familiar formulas.
An Arsenal Straight Out of a Nightmare
The weapon selection is where eXcise has the opportunity to distinguish itself from more conventional shooters. Rather than simply handing players a collection of familiar firearms, it combines mechanical body weapons, modified surgical tools and lethal homemade prototypes. This is an appropriately disturbing extension of the protagonist’s transformation, turning the very concept of weaponry into a reminder of the experiments that created this nightmare. The arsenal sounds less like something assembled by a traditional military engineer and more like the result of a medical professional being given unlimited resources, no ethical oversight and an alarming amount of time alone in a laboratory.
That distinction matters because weapons define the personality of any first-person shooter. A memorable arsenal encourages experimentation, makes combat encounters feel varied and gives players a reason to look forward to discovering what comes next. In eXcise, the grotesque nature of the weapons promises a more visceral relationship between the protagonist and the violence unfolding around them. Instead of simply firing conventional ammunition into another crowd of monsters, players are invited to embrace the disturbing consequences of a world where biology and machinery have become inseparable.
The real challenge is ensuring that this imaginative equipment feels meaningfully different in practice. A weapon can have a wonderfully disgusting appearance, but its long-term appeal depends on how it handles, the situations in which it excels and the decisions it encourages. The available description does not provide a complete weapon list or detailed upgrade systems, so it would be premature to claim that every tool offers a radically different combat experience. Nevertheless, the combination of surgical implements and biomechanical weaponry gives eXcise a stronger thematic identity than another shooter populated entirely by conventional guns.
Body Horror Without Pulling Its Punches
Dismemberment is another major part of the game’s appeal, with real-time physics allowing combat to leave visible consequences on the creatures unfortunate enough to cross your path. In a conventional shooter, enemies often disappear after taking enough damage, becoming little more than moving targets on the way to the next encounter. eXcise instead places the physical destruction of its opponents at the centre of its presentation, making the violence part of the game’s wider body horror aesthetic. The result, at least in concept, is a shooter where the monsters look as disturbing in defeat as they do when charging towards you.
Environmental deformation adds another dimension to this brutality. The world is not simply a static backdrop against which the action takes place, but a setting that can respond to the destruction unfolding within it. That idea suits the game’s ruined laboratories and devastated urban environments, where the distinction between machinery, flesh and the remains of civilisation has already begun to disappear. If these effects remain clear and readable during the most hectic encounters, they could help give battles a distinctive physical presence rather than making every firefight feel like a familiar exchange of damage numbers.
There is, naturally, a fine line between satisfying visual impact and overwhelming clutter. Fast-paced shooters depend on players being able to recognise threats quickly, particularly when enemies are approaching from multiple directions. If dismemberment effects, debris and dark environments compete too aggressively for attention, the very spectacle that makes the combat appealing could also obscure important information. This is a potential concern rather than a confirmed universal flaw, but it highlights the balancing act facing a game that wants to be both visually outrageous and mechanically precise. The gore needs to enhance the action, not make it harder to understand.
A World Built From Industrial Decay
The setting promises a suitably oppressive blend of scientific facilities and urban environments overrun by biomechanical monsters. Laboratories are an obvious fit for the story, given the protagonist’s treatment at the hands of the surgeon, but their presence also offers a useful contrast with the ruined streets beyond. One environment represents the controlled setting in which the horrors were created, while the other shows the wider consequences of what has been unleashed. Together, they help establish the scale of the catastrophe without requiring the game to abandon its focus on combat.
WildSphere’s horror background should be an advantage here. Body horror is most effective when it makes familiar things feel fundamentally wrong, and the idea of experimental creatures roaming a devastated world offers plenty of opportunities for unsettling designs. Mechanical structures fused with living tissue are disturbing precisely because they undermine the boundaries we normally rely on to understand the world. eXcise takes that discomfort and places it at the heart of a fast-moving action game, creating a contrast between the revulsion of its imagery and the almost arcade-like pleasure of surviving another encounter.
The environments also appear designed to support the game’s direct approach to progression rather than intricate exploration. That is not necessarily a problem, because a shooter built around constant motion does not need to interrupt every battle with complicated environmental puzzles. However, players who enjoy uncovering elaborate secrets, solving layered mysteries, or exploring expansive interconnected spaces should be aware that the description places the emphasis firmly on action. The ruined world provides the atmosphere and context for the violence, while the combat remains the main attraction.
Industrial Metal: The Sound of Vengeance
A game like eXcise needs a soundtrack that recognises when subtlety is the wrong answer. Its industrial metal soundtrack promises a relentless wall of sound that complements the speed of combat and the grotesque spectacle on screen. Heavy, aggressive music can transform an ordinary firefight into something that feels almost confrontational, pushing players forward when a more restrained score might encourage them to hesitate. Here, the soundtrack is not simply an atmospheric accessory. It is part of the game’s identity, reinforcing the idea that this is a world where quiet reflection has been replaced by mechanical violence and furious determination.
The music also fits within the game’s wider aesthetic. Industrial metal draws on harsh textures, grinding rhythms and an abrasive energy that mirror the fusion of machinery and flesh at the heart of the premise. Combined with the sounds of weapons and the physical destruction of enemies, it can make each encounter feel like a violent performance in which the player is both the central character and the instrument of chaos. The description does not identify individual tracks or explain how the soundtrack changes between encounters, so its overall variety remains difficult to judge. Still, the musical direction is a natural fit for the experience WildSphere is trying to create.
Final Verdict
eXcise makes a strong impression through the sheer confidence of its concept. By combining classic high-speed FPS combat with grotesque biomechanical weaponry, real-time dismemberment, and a world destroyed by medical experimentation, WildSphere has created a shooter with a clear personality. Its greatest appeal lies in the contrast between the familiar pleasure of fast, aggressive action and the deeply unpleasant imagery surrounding it. The protagonist’s search for vengeance provides a straightforward motivation, while the industrial metal soundtrack and ruined environments help establish an atmosphere that is more than just another collection of monster-filled corridors.
There are still questions about how successfully the different elements come together over the full experience. A distinctive arsenal needs mechanical variety; dismemberment must not obscure enemy behaviour; and speed is only satisfying when controls and encounters feel fair. The supplied information does not establish the campaign’s length, the depth of its progression systems, or the consistency of its technical performance, so those aspects should not be taken for granted. Yet the central idea is compelling, and the decision to lean fully into arcade aggression rather than imitate slow-burn survival horror gives the game a welcome sense of purpose.
For fans of classic shooters who like their action fast, their monsters grotesque, and their soundtracks loud enough to rattle the operating table, eXcise looks like a suitably ferocious proposition. It may not needlessly complicate its formula, but it has enough visual nastiness and thematic character to stand apart from more conventional FPS releases. This is a game that takes the phrase ‘medical nightmare’ and turns it into a licence for unapologetic digital carnage.
