HIGH Lots of ways to kill!

LOW The painful lack of innovation.

WTF Are the devs familiar with the concept of a difficulty curve?!?

The Last Faith is a gothic, Bloodborne-inspired 2D metroidvania that follows Erik, a man suffering from a mysterious sickness that plagues the world and turns people into monsters. Set on finding a cure, Erik sets out on a journey to find the cause of the plague and those responsible for it.

The theme and premise of the story are heavily inspired by Blasphemous without much narrative innovation — the focus is on a deadly pandemic and how religious fanatics and politicians exploit people and society for their goals. This is well-trodden territory.

The Last Faith’s gameplay is a blend of soulslike and metroidvania. Erik uses melee weapons to fight off enemies and gathers “Nycrux”, which is used to buy items from NPCs, upgrade weapons, and level up his stats. Upon death, all the Nycrux is lost and must be retrieved just like all the other soulslike
games. Upgrading weapons is pretty straightforward. Erik should bring upgrade materials found across the land to a specific NPC and improve his weapons.

The combat is mostly focused on using a variety of melee weapons including whips, swords, and axes in combination with pistols or ranged spells. Players can also use items in their surroundings such as chairs and rocks as throwable weapons, which is useful as since Erik’s ranged weapons and spells consume ammo and mana that are limited and refilled at bonfire-like checkpoints.

As you might imagine by the number of references and comparisons I’ve already made up to this point, a big issue with The Last Faith is its lack of originality. It is impossible to play it without mentally comparing it to any number of similar titles. While the enemy variety and boss designs are impressive, there’s nothing special about them, and certainly none of them will be remembered a moment after credits rolling.

There are collectibles and sidequests for NPCs, but doing them is usually rewarded with new items or spells and doesn’t have any impact on the narrative or ending.

There is no skill tree, and unlocking new abilities is story-related and happens when the player advances enough in the campaign. In too many ways, The Last Faith sticks to predictable, expected gameplay design choices… except when it comes to difficulty.

A significant issue here is the unbalanced difficulty. Due to its metroidvania design semi-gating progress, many areas in The Last Faith are at least partly accessible in the beginning, and there’s no way to know if a chosen area is the right path to follow. I would imagine that most players will immediately begin the usual cycle of dying, grinding for better gear, and leveling up the character when facing the too-challenging areas early on, which then leads to an overpowered Erik in the late game who ends up blowing past any resistance.

The Last Faith is an experience big enough to keep fans of the material occupied for 15 hours or so — the story is straightforward and the combat is… fine? Unfortunately for it, 2023 has been one of the busiest, richest years for quality game releases, and in light of such competition, The Last Faith doesn’t have much to offer.

Score: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game was developed by Kumi Souls Games and published by Playstack. It is currently available on  XBO/X/S, PS4/5, Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game has been rated M by the ESRB for Blood and Gore, Violence and Nudity. The main character fights humans and monsters, depicted with instances of combat and dismemberment. The nudity is not a major element.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can’t be altered and/or resized. There are no necessary audio cues in the game. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Controls can be remapped.

HIGH Superb aesthetics, tons of quality-of-life features, flexible systems.

LOW The true final boss is an OP nightmare.

WTF Trapping players by disabling fast-travel before a boss fight.

Konstantin did a great job of singing this game’s praises in his main review and I agree with almost everything he said, so this second opinion will focus on how Lies of P is a great response to the groundbreaking formula that FromSoft pioneered.

It’s no secret that the popularity of soulslikes has exploded in recent years. However, while many developers want to hitch a ride on those coattails, the majority simply recreate (to a lesser degree) what has been done before without fully understanding what the original decisions mean, why they were made, or how they can be improved and polished. Even FromSoft — the creator of the genre — is itself guilty of this at times, persisting with certain choices while resisting innovation.

In this regard, I see Lies of P as a true next-generation soulslike — not in a more polygons, faster hardware sense, but as something that takes the traditional formula and creates a noteworthy experience by taking a hard look at what’s been established and then making several significant changes, though they might not be immediately apparent.

For example, FromSoft is notorious for fragmented storytelling. Players who want to fully grasp what’s going on have to read every item description, infer relationships and events from suggestions, find secrets — and sometimes even with all that achieved, they still have to go to YouTube and hope that loremasters have created an explainer that strings it all together. While I can understand the rationale behind it, too many others follow in the same esoteric footsteps with even less success. In contrast, Lies of P proves that soulslikes don’t need obfuscated stories in order to work.

In this Pinocchio-inspired tale, the developers are clear about who’s doing what and why, and it’s a breath of fresh air. Though there is a bit of intrigue and there are certainly lore notes to be read, P‘s world is populated with characters who have much to say in plain, straightforward language. The constant company of Gemini (cricket) supports this — while he’s not a chatterbox, he does pipe up with important information when appropriate, filling gaps in knowledge from the perspective of someone who knows more than the player. Lonely, decaying worlds have been done to death. Crafting something different by offering conversational NPCs and clearly communicated plot beats doesn’t take away from the experience — it just creates a different, equally viable one.

That brings me to my next bit of praise for Lies of P — most of the sidequests are easily discoverable from reasonable play and don’t require an FAQ or wiki to figure out. In fact, P goes out of its way to help with this by offering voiceovers, text and cues in the menu that tell the player when they’ve triggered something that requires further investigation. These assists don’t reveal every secret, of course, but they go a long way towards getting the player involved and feeling empowered, rather than stymying them with increasingly-arcane secrets.

In terms of gameplay itself, it hews closely to traditional Souls lines, but with improvements that retain the core qualities. For example, there’s a generous respec option which lets players experiment with different builds at-will, once they’ve unlocked it through campaign progress. Even better, the majority of weapons in P can be disassembled to mix and match both blades and handles. This means that players are almost guaranteed to be able to find or build a weapon that suits them, and then they can spec to effectively support that playstyle, even if they don’t discover what style they prefer until late in the game. Upgrade materials are plentiful, and there are items that can further modify weapons to suit a player’s taste. Lies of P wants players to become comfortable with the combat, not punish them for committing to the wrong weapon too early.

Something that has been a point of contention in the genre is that a segment of the soulslike audience feels the only good world is one that is dense and interconnected, looping back upon itself and linked with shortcuts. Basically, they only want something that mimics the original Dark Souls.

Interestingly, that multi-layered Dark Souls design wasn’t the original concept put forth by FromSoft, and they have diverged from it themselves — see Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls II and Elden Ring to name a few. Lies of P decides to eschew the fan favorite and instead goes with largely linear environments, and it’s a fine choice. Rather than leaning into the kind of exploration where a player might get lost by frequently circling back and trying to figure out which way is the right one, it’s always easy to ascertain the main path and advance, although there are small divergences and pockets for those who like to poke around. Personally, I enjoyed the greater focus on forward momentum and didn’t feel as though the experience was lesser for it.

Overall, Lies of P is the first soulslike in quite some time that intentionally stays within the classic parameters set by FromSoft, while offering enough noteworthy changes and flexible quality-of-life options to make it feel like it’s built on the material that came before it, rather than being just a copy of it.

I’m a fan of what P‘s developers have done, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that every inch is absolutely dripping with style. The combat has flair, the graphics are gorgeous, the soundtrack is amazing, and the aesthetics are unerringly on point. This cool-as-hell Belle Époque automaton with dreams of becoming a real boy is a protagonist that I enjoyed adventuring with from start to finish. If I had to critique something, I’d say that I wouldn’t mind less emphasis on parrying, but it’s hard to be too upset about it, as there are accommodations available there, as well.

As someone who witnessed the birth of soulslikes and has spent time with every significant entry since then, Lies of P is earns my praise for being a smartly-designed, sharply observant piece that is both a commentary on and an advancement of a genre that is here to stay.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and published by Neowiz Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/S/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 35 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Violence. The official summary reads: “This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the role of the puppet Pinocchio in his search to become human. From a third-person perspective, players explore environments, collect items, and battle various enemies (e.g., puppets, mechanoid creatures) in melee-style combat. Players use swords and mechanical arms with ranged attacks (e.g., Puppet String, Flamberge) to kill enemies. Boss battles depict more prolonged combat against larger enemies. Battles are highlighted by slashing sounds, cries of pain, and large blood-splatter effects. Some environments depict bloody corpses and large blood stains on the ground.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Every line of dialogue is accompanied by written text, and I personally found the font size to be easily readable. Sound is completely unimportant for playing and enjoying this game since there are no audio-only cues for incoming attacks. I played it for some time with the volume turned fully off and had no problems. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram and the controls are remappable. The default scheme is similar to other soulslikes, meaning we use the circle button to run/roll/dodge, the shoulder buttons are for light and strong attacks, the square button is for using items, the left stick is for movement and the right stick handles the camera.

HIGH The many bosses and mini-bosses!

LOW The world is far too linear for a soulslike.

WTF Why can’t I attack that obvious traitor before it’s too late?!

I believe a certain percentage of the world’s gaming audience will take even a moderately good soulslike over anything from another genre, any day of the week. Aside from the difficulty and bleak tones, soulslikes offer an underlying level of intensity that many action titles struggle to maintain for the length of a campaign. At the same time, they effortlessly establish a ‘beat this, if you can!’ relationship with the player — a unique kind of psychological trick, both alluring and treacherous, making them hard to quit for the right sort of person. However, there are many ways a new soulslike can go wrong, and the scrutiny from fans of the genre can be intense. With all that said, I’m happy to report that Lies of P is the latest noteworthy entry in its ever-expanding genre.

Lies of P’s moment-to-moment mechanics combine several aspects from popular soulslikes that came before — for instance, much success relies on how well we can manage the genre-standard always-dwindling stamina reserves. Attacking, dodging, running, jumping — all of these actions drain a portion of the character’s lung capacity, and if it was to deplete, we’d be open to severe punishment from any opposing force lingering nearby. However, we can block incoming attacks. It won’t completely negate the force of the impact, but striking soon after will restore a portion of lost health back.

Aside from blocking, we can also parry if we block at the particular instant when the enemy’s weapon is about to connect. Unfortunately, there’s a hidden difficulty regarding perfect parries — the English localization of Lies of P isn’t as accurate as it needs to be.

For example, the game ‘explains’ that I can nullify any enemy attack if I tap the block button at just the right time to land a perfect parry, but that’s not exactly how it works. In actuality, to perform a ‘perfect parry’ nullification (followed by a satisfying metal-against-metal clunking noise and the possible breaking of an adversary’s blade) we must not only press the block button at the right moment but also proceed to hold it for the next few milliseconds. Without those extra frames of blocking, the parry won’t happen and the player will simply take damage. 

Needless to say, that is not a harmless ‘misunderstanding’ given how Lies of P practically insists that we master parrying via its generous selection of bosses with entertaining rhythm-based attack patterns. Plus, even regular foes have access to special “fury” attacks that can only be repelled by a perfect parry. Therefore, it’s unfortunate that Lies of P doesn’t spend enough time (in its translation or otherwise) to ensure that players understand how this core mechanic works, but I’m inclined to write that off as an oversight, and not an intentional misrepresentation of the ‘proper’ way to play.

However, once we’ve figured out how parrying works, it’s easy to find tons of enjoyment with it! Lies of P offers a voice different from the average soulslike — it sets a peculiar tempo and everything about it works better and better as the campaign progresses! So yes, this game takes a good while to truly get going. Admittedly, the timing to land a parry gets trickier when more dexterous enemies start popping up, but exploiting the system is well worth it in the end, even if Lies of P enjoys racking up the difficulty up to 11. 

As for the early areas, they are reminiscent of common soulslike scenarios — corners hiding two or three enemies in ambush positions when only one is easily visible, suspiciously barren uphill sections where a rolling ball suddenly makes an appearance with the intent of squashing the player, and so forth. Still, even if I correctly deciphered these challenges on time, dealing with them in Lies of P feels a bit ‘off’ at first.

Part of this, I think, is that the developers opted to lock some basic moves genre fans expect behind a skill tree. As a result, we cannot pull off intuitive things like rolling after an enemy forces us to the ground or being able to string two dodges in a row. That seems like an arbitrary hurdle that might discourage newcomers to the genre far earlier than intended — in a soulslike, such moves should be completely available from the start, and the gameplay in P suffers due to that imposed sluggishness. Luckily, Lies of P manages to outgrow those shortcomings before it’s too late.

The game’s many weapons come in two categories — regular (found as item pick-ups across the world) and special (armaments that require interacting with a merchant and parting with a specific boss soul to obtain). We can utilize them with the usual assortment of light, strong, charged, running, or jumping attacks, but can also perform special attacks that cost no stamina, yet drain the energy bar instead. Filling the energy bar back up is possible by landing hits on an enemy or by using consumables (which are quite effective in Lies of P, especially those of the explosive kind).  

Furthermore, we can break all non-boss weapons apart and produce entirely new weapons by combining whichever handle with whichever blade. By tinkering with this system, I was able to give longer reach to a fire-infused dagger or transfer a defensive weapon art from an axe to a rapier. It’s a neat inclusion that allows for some player agency, though I found the weapons to be effective enough in their original states. We can also change a weapon’s scaling, which actually mitigates the issue of there not being enough dexterity-based weapons prior to the mid-game. Regardless, P has a lot of decisions to make when it comes to his weapon of choice, and many are worth exploring to the fullest. 

But what about P’s left arm? It’s obvious from the trailers and promo art that he looks like a normal human, with the exception of a mechanical left arm. This limb is the biggest tell that we’re playing as a puppet that’s turned against its frenzied brethren and a slew of more ‘organic’ enemy types to save humanity. To combat those odds, P can equip his left arm with choices like a flamethrower, a string that pulls enemies, a shield, and other contraptions that I won’t spoil here. Thus, P‘s left arm becomes a pivotal part of the character build and greatly complements any given offense.

On that note, having the means to dish out damage within a small window of opportunity is important in Lies of P. The enemies are often more resilient than initially anticipated, and the wide selection of bosses and mini-bosses offer truly epic encounters that warrant an analytical approach. The designs of these baddies lie somewhere between the wacky and the grotesque, but I was pleased with both. If there’s any nitpick to be raised, it’s that most of the bosses have a second stage that’s wildly different from the first, despite retaining a reasonable difficulty. These fights are a definite highlight!

Story-wise, P follows beats similar to the classic 19th-century tale of Pinocchio, but also takes inspiration from a myriad of other sources, such as transhumanism, morality, cabaret art, and more. The plot is easy to keep up with due to a plethora of written collectibles and NPC dialogue to engage with, but I found it to be a bit lackluster despite the effort. Without spoilers, the script spreads itself too thin, yet many times when an enemy or an NPC would initiate monologues, I wished that they would cut them short. A part of what makes Dark Souls‘ storytelling such a success is that it evades revealing everything. Lies of P heads boldly in the opposite direction, but I found myself caring less and less as the conclusion drew nearer…   

Another complaint might be that while Lies of P looks pretty at all times and is populated with supremely animated character models, the levels are actually linear and “blocky”, for lack of a better term. While it’s impossible to get lost in them, the game’s levels are not all that memorable either. After revisiting a few of the early areas before facing the (real) end boss, I was surprised at how few of those layouts I remembered. The final gauntlet drags a bit too long as well — in my opinion, an entire third of it could’ve been cut and the experience wouldn’t have suffered one bit.  

Despite those complaints, Lies of P remains a resounding two thumbs up. While not perfect, there are no serious arguments to be made about this ambitious attempt’s quality. In my view, it most definitely is the strongest contender for best soulslike of the year in 2023!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 

Disclosures: This game is developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and published by Neowiz Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/S/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 40 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Violence. The official summary reads: “This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the role of the puppet Pinocchio in his search to become human. From a third-person perspective, players explore environments, collect items, and battle various enemies (e.g., puppets, mechanoid creatures) in melee-style combat. Players use swords and mechanical arms with ranged attacks (e.g., Puppet String, Flamberge) to kill enemies. Boss battles depict more prolonged combat against larger enemies. Battles are highlighted by slashing sounds, cries of pain, and large blood-splatter effects. Some environments depict bloody corpses and large blood stains on the ground.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Every line of dialogue is accompanied by written text, and I personally found the font size to be easily readable. Sound is completely unimportant for playing and enjoying this game since there are no audio-only cues for incoming attacks. I played it for some time with the volume turned fully off and had no problems. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram and the controls are remappable. The default scheme is similar to other soulslikes, meaning we use the circle button to run/roll/dodge, the shoulder buttons are for light and strong attacks, the square button is for using items, the left stick is for movement and the right stick handles the camera.

HIGH It’s one of the richest open worlds ever created.

LOW Endless invasions.

WTF Seriously, how is anyone supposed to figure these sidequests out?

Mike Suskie’s main review of Elden Ring is a great one and it celebrates many of the same things that I would. Seeing that we were of like mind, I was content to take my time and be as thorough as possible, combing every area and trying to see as much of FromSoft’s latest work as I could in a single playthrough — it’s unlikely I’ll be replaying a game of such immense size anytime soon.

Now that I’ve finally rolled credits after 210 hours, I’m ready to weigh in on this magnum opus and I still agree with Mike’s verdict. He captured what was good and right about it, and since he already did such a great job of singing its praises, I’ll instead offer a bit of contrast by offering some criticism on areas where Elden Ring stumbles a bit — it’s a marvelous experience, but it’s not perfect.

Let’s start with the storytelling.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of From’s patented ‘cryptic’ approach, but it’s now a concept that’s thoroughly worn out its welcome – and it’s a shame! The writers have done a great job in crafting a host of NPCs that each have a sidequest to unravel, and when all of the bits are laid bare, they’re largely interesting and compelling. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to progress the sidequests (or even find them!) without following a walkthrough.    

For example, one of the characters I cared most about was Millicent, the amputee swordswoman suffering from Rot. Her quest started off just fine, with the beginning portion set in a place that would be likely unmissable, and the next few steps were located nearby. At that point, From absolutely lost me as her next events were in places that I had already been to and had no reason to revisit, or they were in places that I wouldn’t see for another 20, 50, or 100 hours. With a world so huge and the possibility of doing so much of it in random order, trying to locate Millicent’s next narrative trigger (or anyone else’s, for that matter) is like searching for a needle in a haystack hidden inside an invisible barn… on another planet.

Complicating things, it’s often necessary to revisit the same location several times in order to get the whole story.

In any other game, a character would give their exposition and impart whatever item or reward was due, and that would be the end of it. In Elden Ring, it’s common to find a character and then have to leave and come back to get the next chunk of the tale, and then to leave and return again to finally get the item that’s needed. In one late-game quest, I had to leave and revisit the same location four times to finish things off, and I only came back so often because a wiki told me to. Because of this absurd requirement I missed out on several things that would have been obvious in any other game — it’s just a layer of annoyance that doesn’t serve any purpose.   

Another bizarre decision? There are at least two separate characters who have enriching exposition or key quest steps hidden as menu options that never call attention to themselves. It’s far too easy to overlook one extra option on a page full of them – why not have these characters simply show up and address the player? They sometimes do, so the inconsistency is not only a disservice to the player, I struggle to imagine how anyone felt like burying them in a menu was a reasonable, effective choice. I went more than 100 hours without realizing that I had been missing sporadic messages and in doing so, had inadvertently avoided a key relationship. When the time came for that story beat to unfold, it fell flat because none of the groundwork had been laid.  

None of these choices are intuitive or logical — especially with the now-vast and wide-open nature of the world — and these interesting, compelling stories are going to waste thanks to a storytelling system that is critically broken.

My other major frustration has to do with something that is otherwise brilliant – the Ash Summons.

During Elden Ring, players will come across many items which allow them to summon AI characters to assist them in battle, everything ranging from a giant jellyfish to stealthy dagger-wielding assassins. These helpers are key since they draw aggro away from the player and give them a chance to heal, or they provide distractions while lining up a killer arrow or spell. Considering how relentless some enemies are, it’s safe to say that the developers absolutely intended that players use them. Unfortunately, their implementation feels arbitrary in a way that undercuts their utility.

Rather than being able to summon them at any time, players can only summon them when From (apparently) thinks they’re necessary. They’re available in almost every boss encounter, and in some areas which, I assume, the developers think are tough enough to warrant some backup. However, there were many times when I wanted to summon some aid and just couldn’t… because reasons? If there’s any logic to where and when these Ash creatures can be used in the world, I can’t figure it out.   

In a similar vein, it’s high time that From stops being so precious with the co-op/player summoning system and just gets with the program. To be fair, it’s easier and better in Elden Ring than basically every other From game, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. I spent the vast majority of my 200+ hours partnering up with my wife, and we were constantly wishing that we could just join each other in a party instead of summoning each other in specific places. Worse, once the boss of a specific zone is beaten, players can’t be summoned in to help there again. Why not? Who cares if someone wants to explore or just grind for souls with a friend?

But the absolute worst thing about playing in co-op? Non-stop invasions.

I’ve spoken to several Elden players who got through the entire game without ever being invaded by another real player, but when adventuring with my wife, we were invaded constantly. During certain times of the day it was as frequent as every five minutes, and being attacked multiple times between graces was common.  

I understand that the idea is to funnel invaders towards people who already have some backup, but this is in dire need of tuning. After being invaded, it would be nice if there was a ‘cooldown’ timer that prevented another invasion for a certain period, or perhaps a limit on the total number of times someone could be invaded during a session would help. We got attacked so often it was a joke, and having boss runs or exploratory jaunts busted up by people who were geared for one-hit PVP kills was maddening.

There are a few other irritations that could be mentioned. Certain areas feel like they could be trimmed back to promote a leaner runtime or adjustments could be made to how so many of the late-game rewards are Faith-based — it’s a huge bummer for non-Faith players to get an item they can’t use after besting a tough foe.

At this point I’m sure readers are getting ready to send some angry comments my way, so let me just restate that this is a contrasting piece meant to shed a little light on places where the experience could use a tweak or two. Criticisms aside, let me be clear in saying that Elden Ring is an extraordinary achievement that is unquestionably at the top of the open-world genre. The vistas are incredible, the sense of exploration is constant and surprising, and the feeling of finally achieving mastery over this immense challenge is second to none — but like I mentioned at the start of this review, Mike said all of that already.

Disclosures: This game is developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4/5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 210 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. The entirety of play was spent with multiplayer features enabled and the majority of playtime was spent with an active co-op partner.

Parents: According to the ESRB this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes and Violence. There are a couple of suggestive character designs throughout and a bit of mild profanity, but the violence is where Elden Ring earns its rating. This is arguably FromSoft’s most gruesome game to date, with severed parts and mutilated corpses littering the landscape. While it’s fitting with the tone of the world and tastefully portrayed, it’s not for children.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Audio cues are frequently used to notify players of either points of interest or approaching enemies, and the game doesn’t offer any sort of visual representation of these cues. The lack of visual cues renders an already-obtuse game even more difficult, and forces players to be even more alert. As such, this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls. (PS controls shown.)

HIGH When the highest location on the map is also a climactic story beat.

LOW Scarlet Rot, this game’s version of the “toxic” ailment.

WTF That thing under Stormveil Castle.

When the embargo for Elden Ring dropped a few weeks ago, the number-one thing we were all echoing was how unfathomably massive the game is. I correctly estimated at the time that with 40-50 hours clocked, I was only about a third of the way through it. However, From Software are masters of hiding their light under a bushel, and despite our warnings people are still being caught off guard by the sheer enormity of what this team has produced.

What’s more interesting, though, is that every time Elden Ring presents an Anor Londo-esque reveal – a moment when FromSoft raises the curtain just as players think they’re getting a handle on the game’s scale – it’s welcomed as a good thing. In an entertainment industry that’s grown increasingly focused on prolonged engagement where the average new triple-A release looks more like a list of chores than a relaxing way to unwind after a tough workday, it’s refreshing to see something that actually earns its status as the only videogame we’re expected to play for months at a time. It’s a game so good that it makes other games difficult to go back to.

I wrote up some impressions of Elden Ring back when the embargo dropped. I’ve since tripled my playtime and finished the game, and I’m pleased to report that nothing I’ve seen has dampened my initial enthusiasm. My opinion hasn’t changed – it’s a masterpiece. What has changed is that Elden Ring has since become a massive mainstream success. This may seem to be coming from out of nowhere to anyone who’s been scared off by the studio’s ‘hardcore’ label and dismissed their past work as niche. But to those who have been following FromSoft’s work since they launched Dark Souls, this particular entry feels like the natural conclusion to a years-long journey on the studio’s part.

While the term “soulslike” has been heavily misused in recent years – usually to simply describe any action-RPG that happens to be tough – it’s undeniable that director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team have essentially created an entire subgenre with its own cadence and vocabulary (souls, bonfires, flasks, etc.). We’re increasingly seeing other developers attempt to emulate the formula, and while there have been scattered successes, playing Elden Ring is like sipping my favorite craft beer again after years of nothing but domestic swill.

In fact, part of the reason that Elden Ring works so well is that FromSoft has the basics down for a while now. Most crucially, the combat is more-or-less perfect. The rapidly-recharging stamina meter has always been a particular stroke of genius in the way that it lends an element of decision-making to every offensive or defensive maneuver. Victory hinges not just on reflexes, but on the player’s understanding of the fundamental rules by which everything in this world abides. Downing a tough adversary under such conditions makes me feel both powerful and smart.

The most immediate upside of moving the FromSoft formula to a truly open world, then, is having a seemingly endless number of ways to engage with that satisfying combat loop. While there are some repeated fixtures throughout the Lands Between – the catacombs with their environmental puzzles, or the mines that yield upgrade materials – everything is individually authored and houses unique rewards. I can boot up Elden Ring, microdose on some of that Souls gameplay I know and love, and always end my session feeling productive.

Although Breath of the Wild isn’t a one-to-one comparison – players cannot literally go straight from the tutorial to the final boss, for example – the spirit of Nintendo’s benchmark is in full force here since the overwhelming majority of Elden Ring is optional. A player’s specific route to the endgame rests entirely on how much of the world they want to see and how easy they want to make future battles via doing more prep work. The game is almost like a FromSoft buffet table, allowing us to pick and choose the components of our perfect meal.

Bolstering that flexibility is a returning emphasis on character builds. While there’s an undeniable joy in games like Bloodborne and Sekiro forcing us to master new tricks, bringing shields and magic back into the fold goes a long way in making this hundred-plus-hour behemoth palatable. Those who like to study boss patterns and minimize the number of hits they take can do so, but tanking is viable again, as is slinging projectiles from across the room. Whatever type of action-RPG we want Elden Ring to be, it can be.

The wealth of options expands beyond how we build our protagonist. The ability to simply bypass entire groups of enemies has never been easier, thanks to both the openness of the world and the presence of a surprisingly reliable stealth system. Is it the silly variety of stealth that mainly involves crouching in bushes? Sure, but it’s amazing how much that doesn’t matter when developers stop striving for cinematic realism and treat these spaces as the abstractions that they are.

Elden Ring becomes more linear in its final hours, as objectives decrease in number and all paths begin funneling toward a conclusion. That’s where I finally started hitting walls, but by that point I’d collected so many tools and learned so much about the systems that I needed only switch up my strategy. I could experiment with new weapons or even respec if necessary. I could summon a Burger King cosplayer to fire lasers at it, or unleash an AI-controlled familiar as a distraction to buy some breathing room. Or, as ever, I could just find something else to do and come back once I had a bit more confidence.

The free-flowing structure of Elden Ring is made possible by a story that is, as always, happy to stay in the periphery. The lore is extensive and fascinating, with new details constantly being pieced together by the community, including further work on at least one genuinely unsolved mystery. However, it’s only there for people who care enough to go looking for it. Everyone else will be focused on the real story, which is the same story that all FromSoft games have – the epic tale of a shriveled-up little weirdo who slowly and steadily works up the power to topple gods, for no other reason than they wanted to.

The overwhelming mainstream success of Elden Ring has resurrected old questions about the approachability and user friendliness of FromSoft’s work that diehards have long stopped caring about. All I can say is that it never occurred to me not to jump down the deep, perilous hole in which the game hides its tutorial, nor does it strike me as bad design that Elden Ring is full of obscure secrets that no one player could ever hope to find on their own. These games simply have their own language. The darkly humorous trolls are part of that language, as is the steep learning curve and the communal experience of sharing notes.

That may sound like an excuse, but it’s hard to argue with the results – FromSoft has stuck rigidly to this formula, and their fanbase has exponentially grown. More and more people are learning the language.

Elden Ring has already become too big for rival developers to ignore, and I worry that many of them will seek to emulate its surface-level qualities while ignoring the real lesson here – that some of us want games made by artists, not algorithms. Chasing trends may lead to short-term gains, but it’s no substitute for a developer spending more than a decade fine-tuning a creative vision so singular that it defies our usual metrics for what can be considered “good” or “bad” design. Whether Elden Ring is perfect is beside the point. What matters is that it’s the ultimate expression of a blueprint first laid out in Dark Souls. It’s made my favorite game of all time feel like a practice run.

Disclosures: This game is developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4/5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 160 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. The entirety of play was spent with multiplayer features enabled.

Parents: According to the ESRB this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes and Violence. There are a couple of suggestive character designs throughout and a bit of mild profanity, but the violence is where Elden Ring earns its rating. This is arguably FromSoft’s most gruesome game to date, with severed parts and mutilated corpses littering the landscape. While it’s fitting with the tone of the world and tastefully portrayed, it’s not for children.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Audio cues are frequently used to notify players of either points of interest or approaching enemies, and the game doesn’t offer any sort of visual representation of these cues. The lack of visual cues renders an already-obtuse game even more difficult, and forces players to be even more alert. As such, this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

In this episode, Carlos & Brad discuss Time Loader and Aztech: Forgotten Gods before deep-diving into the world of Elden Ring.

Elden is the first Souls game that Carlos has sunk time into, and Brad has been a FromSoft fan for 27 years. The two of us are bringing hugely different perspectives on what is sure to be one of the biggest games of the year, and we spend the majority of the show chatting about the bad, and the Tarnished.

SPOILER WARNING – we don’t hold anything back in the Elden Ring segment, so heads up that there may be spoilers of all kinds during the chat. We do give warnings during the show before we start to spill. = )

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

In this episode, Carlos & Brad are joined by the delightful Evelyn Rose Hall (@PixyFreakinStix) of Stegosoft Games (@StegosoftGames) to discuss their indie RPG Rise of the Third Power (@R3Pgame) and other topics.

Of course, there’s games chat as well. They cover:

Elex II
Primordia
Elden Ring

…And more!!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

If Elden Ring were the size of a normal From Software game, I’d have finished it by now. I’m 30 hours in — longer than my entire first run of Bloodborne — yet I’d be surprised if I were more than a third of the way through.

Every time I begin to feel as though I’m getting a sense of Elden Ring‘s scope, it continues to expand. Tiny blips on the map can encompass an entire Boletarian Palace’s worth of dungeon-crawling. New maximum altitudes are discovered at an alarming rate. There creeps a slow awareness that every single patch of land that can be seen on screen is a location that can be visited — and as the sheer size of the thing unravels, it gives me chills.

So, unfortunately, our full Elden Ring review will have to wait, as I still have a long way to go, and our editor wants me to make sure the final boss doesn’t pull a Sekiro before I hand out a perfect ten.

Elden Ring is very possibly my new favorite game of all time, and I don’t say that lightly. It presents what feels like the best possible version of what my previous favorite, Dark Souls, established. It takes the mechanics that influenced a decade’s worth of action RPGs and presents them on a scale to rival Breath of the Wild. Every second of it feels perfect, nothing is redundant, and there is so much of it. I can’t remember ever playing a game that felt so tuned to my specific tastes.

And believe me when I say that I’m not falling victim to hype here. Despite my status as a longtime FromSoft fan, I followed none of the pre-release coverage outside of the initial trailers because discovering a FromSoft game is part of the appeal to me. After the network tests a while back, I’d heard it described as Dark Souls 4, which is both accurate and misleading. That makes it sound like it’s in line with the previous two installments, when it instead restores a sense of wonder to a now very familiar formula.

Get used to the “Dark Souls meets Breath of the Wild” comparisons, because that’s exactly what Elden Ring is. Games are so big these days that it’s not worth comparing hard numbers. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey may very well have the greater square mileage, but few points are given for that when it’s the same handful of activities duplicated ad nauseum. The thing about Elden Ring is that regardless of how many virtual acres it contains, it feels as big as anything I’ve ever played because all of its spaces matter. It never stops being interesting.

I will add that the atmosphere rivals that of a Team Ico project – beautiful, mysterious, dead, and overwhelmingly massive. There are times when Elden Ring’s sense of scale legitimately made my stomach drop, and it’s partly because I know that none of it is set dressing. If I see a massive structure casting shadows over mountains in the distance, it’s not just there to look cool. I’m going to be exploring that entire thing at some point in the future.

In fact, I would actually say that Elden Ring feels closer in spirit to a modern rendition of the original Legend of Zelda from 1986 than anything else, even including Breath of the Wild — partly because it invites exploration by being so seamless and unsegmented, and partly because it’s the uncommon triple-A game with the guts to go (more or less) completely plot-free. Previous FromSoft titles have had branching paths, but they’ve remained linear enough to funnel players past some semblance of a story. In Elden Ring, we’re set loose to absorb any flavor of the world, in any corner we choose. It’s pure adventure.

Speaking of which, players really can go anywhere right from the start, and I’m stunned by the level of trust that FromSoft places in the player to follow, ignore or miss cues. I skipped over a building at the beginning because a particularly nasty enemy was patrolling near it, and wound up going 25 hours without knowing how to craft as a result. A bit farther down the road, I missed a turn and wound up bypassing the Lothric Castle-sized dungeon that was obviously meant to serve as the proper opening level. Instead, I landed in a tougher area first, resulting in a greater sense of satisfaction when I got through it anyway.

While we’re on the topic of difficulty, FromSoft has been slowly narrowing its audience by ramping the challenge of their titles higher and higher, while making it the point. As an example, I’ve abandoned multiple late-game replay saves in Sekiro – a game I otherwise love – because I decided it wasn’t worth forcing myself through those irritating final bosses again.

However, I’m pleased to say that they’ve eased off the gas significantly for this installment. In fact, it’s a little shocking just how smooth and frictionless Elden Ring is. It’s appropriately brutal, of course, and full of the evil pranks we’ve come to expect from this team, but the sheer openness of it means there’s no wall to run up against. If something’s too difficult at the moment, there are a million other options.

Besides the flexible difficulty curve, FromSoft has made changes in other related aspects. For example, there’s zero item degradation that I can detect — meaning no risk of a my favorite weapon breaking. Sekiro skeptics will be glad to hear that Elden Ring has the world’s easiest parrying system. Players will slide into a groove with remarkable ease, and once we’re on our way, it doesn’t try to impress us with big-name actors and exquisitely mocapped performances because it knows that an adventure this rich makes for a good story in and of itself.

Speaking of story, I’m not sure why George R. R. Martin was involved during Elden Ring‘s creation process. As far as I can tell, Hidetaka Miyazaki hired him to write material that feels like it could have come from Miyazaki himself. It’s a bit like when Ennio Morricone was asked to score The Thing, and it sounded exactly like something that John Carpenter would have come up with on his own. That’s not to say that Elden Ring’s lore isn’t fascinating — it is — but it’s interesting in ways that don’t feel notably different from previous FromSoft titles.

There’s so much more that I want to say about Elden Ring, but for now I leave its prospective players to discover it for themselves. The full review will come when I’ve rolled credits, but I hope I’ve made clear that this is the dream game of any FromSoft fan. And to those who’ve felt that the recent Souls games and soulslikes have clung too hard to the git gud angle, my guess is that that they’ll be surprised by how flexible Elden Ring is. It’s an incredibly generous experience, and I have yet to find a single thing that I don’t love about it.

Assuming FromSoft doesn’t completely blow it a little further down the line, this may be their crowning achievement. And considering the developer’s resume, that is frankly staggering.

If you’ve experienced FromSoft’s blood-boiling, hardcore RPGs, you’ll know that the company managed to establish a sub-genre focused on experiencing defeat over and over to achieve victory in the end. Reception is generally split – players either love its delicate design or hate the unforgiving nature of its world and combat.

The latest FromSoftware title, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, turned over a new leaf and changed many of the core elements that shaped the Souls series.

One of the first things the word “soulslike” brings to the mind is the stamina bar. Although many gamers track the origins of the stamina bar back to Demon’s Souls, FromSoftware first used it in their 1994 first-person action-adventure title King’s Field.

The stamina bar is the most impactful element of soulslike games — it controls the flow of the combat, as well as the rate at which the player explores the world. Due to the impact of this mechanic, combat in soulslikes is often comprised of constant attack/retreat phases.

FromSoftware continued to use the stamina bar without any significant changes for more than two decades. It seemed that both the company and its players had grown to appreciate the well-calculated nature it brought, but Sekiro changed the rules by completely ditching it!

The combat in Sekiro, unlike the Souls series, is more aggressive and fast-paced. FromSoftware first introduced this new approach to combat in Bloodborne. In addition to faster combat, Bloodborne introduced a ‘rally’ mechanic that allowed players to recover lost health by quickly attacking the enemies that hit them. This element encouraged an aggressive playstyle, but the flow of each fight was still controlled (and limited) by the stamina bar. The fast-paced combat of Bloodborne has ultimately evolved into a system that uses “posture” in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The posture bar fills gradually when both enemies and players take damage, or when incoming attacks are blocked. This new-to-Fromsoft element required the attention of the player during combat (just like the stamina bar) but didn’t break the flow of battle. Players could still attack and engage if they acted carefully because posture damage is gradually recovered. As such, the attack/retreat nature of classic Souls combat became a more skill-based element.

To balance this out, From gave double health bars to most Sekiro bosses. Now, if players wanted to end a boss fight efficiently, they had to continuously attack and fill their opponent’s posture bar to finish them off. In short, although the combat in Sekiro remained action-oriented, it  required a new set of skills, while not being simplified.

The story in Sekiro is another element that experienced radical changes in comparison with earlier Soulsborne entries.

The plots of From’s work generally revolve around saving the world from total annihilation. In Demon’s Souls, the player should destroy an ancient demon and stop the world from being consumed by a magical fog. The plot of Dark Souls is based on the same basic concept, but this time you should save the “First Flame” and prevent the word from descending into eternal darkness. Even the revolutionary Bloodborne follows the same principles in storytelling — the concepts of Cursed Protagonists Seeking Redemption, A World On The Verge Of Obliteration and Ancient Evil Antagonists are all recurring elements. However, if you dig a little deeper into the storytelling in Sekiro, you’ll find it quite different from the rest.

In From’s earlier work, the stories are focused on saving the world, and the potential salvation of the player character is actually a byproduct of that action. In other words, the focus of the story is on the world in which the game takes place (and its history) but not the protagonist. The protagonists of soulsbornes never speak. These ‘strong, silent type’ characters never develop during the course of a game – they’re just shells to be occupied by us, the player.

 Unlike its predecessors, Sekiro offers a character, The Wolf, who experiences a full arc. He’s a disgraced shinobi who seeks to regain his honor. He has a past and a family — in a manner of speaking — which ties him to the world. Last but not least, Wolf speaks and has personal relationships with NPCs in the game. Wolf is a well-developed character, and this time, the player takes up his role – not the other way around!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice also introduces other elements that no other FromSoft games have, the stealth mechanics and skill tree being two of the most important ones.

While the stealth elements in Sekiro are pretty basic and mostly unpolished, they still offer players new (to Souls) ways of experiencing the world while introducing new combat scenarios.

Much of the stealth comes from the verticality of the world made accessible to Wolf thanks to his grappling hook. Soulsbornes traditionally had their characters stick to the ground, and because of that, the exploration side of those games was focused on opening new doors and connecting different areas to the hubs of each game. In Sekiro, verticality takes some aspects of exploration and combat to a (literal) other level. Now, players could use rooftops to get behind enemies and minibosses to finish them off silently. The hook also gives the player the ability to get around the map faster and zip past obstacles and walls.

The skill tree is another evolution introduced in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. This time around, the power of our character is not simply represented by a bunch of increasing numbers. The skill tree present here provides players with ability customization and lets them choose what types of martial arts they’re going to learn. Choosing a character type at the beginning of Souls games usually limited the use of different weapons and skills later on, but the skill tree in Sekiro allowed the players to be a shinobi, a samurai and a Kung-Fu fighter, all at the same time. This innovation provided a more dynamic, free approach to the combat.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice received critical acclaim, but it’s not flawless and doesn’t define any new technical standards in the industry. No, Sekiro is great because it evolves a sub-genre that had remained fairly static for more than a decade and proves that reconstructing the fundamentals of a series or genre holds value and cements the courage and genius of the developers working at FromSoftware.  

HIGH The abstract stone level. Simply stunning.

LOW Being near death and failing to land a health-restoring parry.

WTF The underdeveloped concept and lack of amenities.

Ever since the blockbuster success of FromSoft’s Souls games, plenty of developers have been wanting a piece of their pie, but few have managed it. Most often, designers take the wrong lessons away from the work – they miss that the secret is not in following From’s footsteps so closely that the material is duplicated, but in taking the feelings and concepts generated by the work and then going in a new direction.

Mortal Shell is the debut from Cold Symmetry, a group of four industry vets starting out on their own. After completing the adventure I’d say that their work is only half-successful, but they’re clearly swinging for the fences.

Like most soulslikes, Mortal Shell offers third-person melee combat that employs a stamina bar to prevent spamming attacks or dodging. Also identical to others in the genre, it features a cryptic, impenetrable story heavy on text-based lore and mysterious characters. And of course, if a player dies they must run back to their corpse to claim the currency there, or else it’s lost forever. In many ways Shell is so similar to an actual Souls game that it could easily be mistaken for one. So where does Cold Symmetry deviate from the formula?

Let’s start with the premise – past the standard soulslike trappings, the player is an undead called the Foundling who’s so frail that any enemy can kill them in one hit. To survive, it must inhabit the dead bodies of fallen warriors it finds.

This is a fascinating concept in the context of an action game, and it was essentially all I knew about Mortal Shell for most of its pre-release period. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the biggest areas where Mortal Shell disappoints.

Rather than forcing the player to adopt new tactics by limiting them to certain bodies in different areas, or even designing scenarios where one body might be more advantageous than another, there are only four inhabitable corpses (total) and they function as builds – one is high HP/low stamina, one is high stamina/low HP, one is balanced, and the fourth… well, I honestly can’t recall what the last one does because not only are these options largely interchangeable, Cold Symmetry goes out of their way to discourage the player from experimenting with them.    

When the player is at Mortal Shell’s hub, they’re free to jump between any of the bodies they’ve found, along with any of the weapons offered – again, four. However, when away from the hub, players must use consumable items to change bodies or weapons. Knowing that a player has a limited number of times to swap equipment puts a huge damper on trying new things.

Another wet blanket on experimentation? Each of the bodies has its own skill tree, and none of the abilities carry over to the others. Earning enough resources to unlock skills (extra damage vs single opponents, no stamina depletion while running, etc.) takes a while, so there’s little incentive to switch to a body that’s got no perks. Of course, the player can grind out resources with a body they’ve upgraded and use those materials on one of the others, but by that point they’ve likely grown accustomed to the form they’ve been using and the only reason to change would be for the novelty of it, or for pure completionism.  

With these choices in place, the body-swapping ‘hook’ of Mortal Shell is nothing more than a standard character build/inventory system like any number of other games, but made prohibitively difficult to use thanks to draconian limitations.

There are other aspects of Mortal Shell that feel underdone at best, hostile towards players at worst. For example, Cold Symmetry has a serious aversion to save points – while the geography of each world is quite small, the slow pace of play means that it can take a fair amount of time for players to crawl their way forward. There were plenty of areas where a few more save points would have been welcome.

The starting hub area is a confusing mess. It’s a samey, green swamp where every part looks identical to the rest, and it’s tough to navigate. I had to consult friends and a YouTube video to locate new areas because I kept doubling back and missing new places to explore.

Other issues include a heavy reliance on group encounters with no way to kite enemies away from the crowd and no way for a player to handle large numbers until they’ve found special weapon upgrades. Also, it’s easy to miss the main hub (I did) and the item needed for the crucial parrying skill. Such a key thing should be given to the player right off the bat.  

Speaking of parrying, Mortal Shell only offers a small number of healing items, and none of them are very effective. Instead, the devs want players to use parrying to stun an enemy before draining life from them. It’s high risk/high reward which is fine in and of itself, but there are no options for players who struggle with the parry timing (me!) and there are no ways to mitigate it – no gear to increase the parry window, nor any way to reduce damage when a parry is missed and the Foundling eats a sword to the face. There is a distinct air of ‘git gud’ in this aspect of Mortal Shell and I didn’t care for it.  

So this is quite a laundry list of things that Mortal Shell doesn’t do well. Why did I bother to finish it, and ultimately, enjoy it? Mostly, it comes down to the parts that do pop.

While the parrying was problematic, the Foundling also has the ability to “harden”. While this is a great setup for a joke, it’s also a fantastic mechanic where the player can turn themselves to stone for a moment and tank through absolutely any incoming hit, small or large. It runs on a cooldown so it can’t be abused, but being able to shrug off one attack as part of a valid combat strategy feels different than standard blocking and also functions differently since it doesn’t use the stamina bar – it’s a power that exists outside of the normal souls repertoire, and it’s excellent.

Also appealing is that Mortal Shell focuses almost entirely on melee encounters with weapons that feel weighty and cumbersome, and animations that successfully communicate the inertia and heft that a real skirmish would have. Swinging a giant sword feels like it takes ages compared to other games, but it hits like a truck when the blade connects, and seeing a foe get blasted across a room by the kineticism of the blow communicates a quality that few action titles capture. Planning strikes requires extra thought, approaches must be deliberate, and mistakes are punished. But when the timing comes together and a sword hits exactly where and when it was meant to? It’s satisfyingly sublime.   

Also, while the swampy hub area was awful, Mortal Shell made up for it with other areas that look amazing. Of particular note was an area made out of massive cyclopean stones that begins in a wide-open space before transitioning into a chokingly narrow tower, and eventually into an abstract dreamscape suspended in the clouds. It was honestly breathtaking, and one of the best levels I’ve seen in any game this year.   

While there were many aspects of Mortal Shell that I didn’t care for, the bits that worked for me really worked. The final product is far from perfect and I’m not sure that I’d even recommend it to anyone except the hardest of soulslike hardcores, but beneath the underdeveloped ideas and questionable design choices is a pool of talent bound for bigger and better things — Cold Symmetry’s work shined brightest when it veered away from standard Souls, and I’m interested to see them take it further.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Cold Symmetry and published by Playstack. It is currently available on PS4, XBO and PC.This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen and contains Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol and Violence. Although it’s full of dark and sinister imagery, the actual violence isn’t terribly graphic as these things go, consisting of some occasional spurts of blood but no actual dismemberments or gore that I saw. Moonshine is a consumable item.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles are available for all dialogue. They cannot be resized or altered. There’s one boss in the game who can briefly turn invisible, during which directional audio cues are used to help detect where he is. Aside from that, noises emitted by enemies frequently alerted the player to nearby danger — these cues are matched by a flash on the player’s parry weapon, but it’s easy to miss. Although playable without sound, players with hearing difficulty will be at a clear disadvantage.

Remappable Controls: The controls cannot be remapped. The Y-axis can be inverted.