Dead Trash (2025) Video Game Review –

Posted on by Jim Cox

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Dead Trash is a 2025 retro-throwback boomer shooter developed by Crowhill Studios and published by DOSMan Games.  

Years into a brutal lockdown, a once-thriving city lies in ruins, abandoned by its government and overrun by vicious, mindless infected. Those left behind are treated as human waste, discarded in a world that no longer cares. The government enforces the quarantine with ruthless precision, sending hazmat teams into the city to kill anyone who remains—infected or not—in an effort to contain the outbreak and secure something far more dangerous hidden within the city.

You play as Sam, a former urban planner, one of the few left alive. With intimate knowledge of the city’s crumbling infrastructure, Sam must navigate both the decaying streets above and the dangerous underground—a maze of trash-filled sewers, forgotten tunnels, and abandoned subways. But no matter where you go, danger awaits. The infected roam mindlessly, bandits hunt survivors, and government hazmat teams sweep through, eliminating anyone in their path as they carry out their deadly mission. Every step brings you closer to escape… or to your end.

Evocative of 80s and 90s exploitation action/horror films, Dead Trash leans heavily into its over-the-top, corny narrative. Being implemented at the beginning and end of a level through stylised photography edited to imitate a graphic novel, à la Max Payne, the narrative is simplistic and unobtrusive—providing a means to an end rather than gripping storytelling. Yet, as a boomer shooter, this is to be expected. As John Carmack once said, “Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.”

With a wide variety of tools at your disposal, the weapons of Dead Trash are a fairly standard roster found in first-person shooters. From melee weapons such as a claw hammer and a fire axe to guns such as dual nail guns, a .45 pistol, a submachine gun, a double-barreled shotgun, an assault rifle, and a sniper rifle, all feature impactful, meaty sound design and a high degree of accuracy—both sounding fantastic and feeling great to use. Additionally, while some weapons may be slightly more effective against certain enemies than others, players won’t necessarily need to min/max damage output by changing weapons every two seconds. The lack of weapon antiquation or damage resistance in enemies keeps each weapon useful in any situation throughout the game.

Bought to live through digitised sprites, Dead Trash features a fair-sized troupe of enemies to battle it out against. With their distinct colour palettes and unique alert sounds, each enemy is easily distinguishable both audibly and visually—making danger prioritisation a breeze. From melee-based attackers that make a beeline to your location, to more dangerous foes who possess firearms, who will take shots at you from afar, the enemy diversity can change up gameplay style on the fly. Furthermore, with enemies possessing the same hitscan weapons as the player, they can deal a lot of damage when in groups. As such, the game plays closer to a Build Engine game than a Doom engine game, requiring good use of cover rather than circle strafing and projectile dodging.

Featuring a fair range of medium-sized maps to explore, Dead Trash’s level designs are both distinct and fitting for the theme. Set in a dilapidated city overrun by the infected, each stage offers a strong visual representation of the decay and deterioration of a quarantined municipality. While most boomer shooters feature vast open level design, allowing multiple ways to approach a level, each stage in Dead Trash delivers a more linear progression down a singular intended path. That isn’t to say there is no exploration to be found, with diverging paths off the beaten track to ammo, new weapons, and plenty of secret areas. However, these usually lead to a dead end, forcing the player to backtrack onto the intended progression path.

Delivering a fantastic score of 80s synth-heavy dark electronica, the music in Dead Trash does an outstanding job of setting the game’s tone. Reminiscent of the works of John Carpenter, Carpenter Brute, and a variety of scores from the video nasties era of 80s cinema, the music, created by UK-based musician BrazenScull, is a felicitous accompaniment to the gritty aesthetics and ultra-violent gameplay. 

However, one notable flaw with the game is the player’s movement speed. While the controls are nice and responsive, reacting well to player input and a necessity for fast-paced combat, the player movement speed is, in contrast, quite sluggish at the best of times. While the average boomer shooter has at least two movement speeds, walk and run, and the ability to engage ‘always run’ to keep the gameplay at max speed throughout, Dead Trash has only one movement speed. This speed is equivalent to the standard walking speed of, say, Doom, Duke Nukem, or Shadow Warrior, causing combat and traversing levels to feel laggy in comparison.

A satisfying throwback retro shooter, Dead Trash shows a knowledgeable understanding of the genre to deliver an excellent example of it. Whilst not without its issues, the game is still an enjoyable 2.5D first-person shooter with outstanding atmosphere and satisfying combat. Although short at around 4 hours of gameplay, its price tag of only a couple of bucks certainly outweighs this, and it is worth checking out if old-school FPS is your thing.

Check out Dead Trash‘s Steam page here.

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