Ravenswatch is a particularly unique take on the familiar conceit of an action roguelike RPG, which puts its cast of heroes at the forefront. Pulled from the pages of classic fairy tales, and given a dark fantasy twist, these heroes band together to vanquish an encroaching force of powerful nightmare creatures – or die trying. Coming from the developers of the action-RPG sleeper hit Curse of the Dead Gods, Passtech Games’ Ravenswatch left me intrigued after some extended hands-on time with the closed alpha, which put a hero-centric spin on the good ol’ fashioned dungeon crawler.
Playing as one of six hero characters – pulling from stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, Beowulf, and The Snow Queen – you’ll freely explore an overworld filled with demons and other opportunities to amass power to face off with powerful demons ruling the land. Throughout this adventure, you’ll learn the ins and outs of your chosen hero as they unlock their latent abilities to purge the land of corruption.
Ravenswatch sticks close to the formula of a dungeon crawl, but it hones that focus more into an adventure game that has a larger goal to accomplish. With each chapter taking place across five days, the main goal of your multi-day jaunt is to build up enough power to be on equal footing with the stage’s end boss, allowing you and other party members to take them down and move on to the next phase of the quest.
What impressed me most from my time with the closed alpha was the cast of heroes, and how their unique skills and personalities add flavor to their adventures. Along with adding new abilities and buffs, you can also unlock special ultimate attacks that can deal heavy damage, such as Beowulf’s super which calls in his pet dragon to rain down flames on foes. Ravenswatch shows the potential of adding hero-centric characters into a dungeon crawler game. Seeing these characters I’ve read about in childhood live out that sword and sorcery fantasy is such a fantastic premise.
While the roster falls into classic archetypes like the close-ranged brawler or zoning magic slinger, their personalities and narrative touches also shape their playstyles. For instance, The Pied Piper uses his enchanted flute and swarm of rats to attack foes from afar. As he gains aggro, he can lead enemies away, weaken their defenses with his spells, and then pick them off with his music. Another standout was Aladdin, who’s presented as an agile brawler type who can hack and slash through foes. But when he needs to call in an assist, he can summon the Genie to beat down the opposition and even grant Aladdin one of three limited wishes to support the party or wipe out surrounding enemies.
The most surprising stand out to me was Meluise, a mermaid and siren that can strike at enemies with water magic. Yes, you can step into the role of The Little Mermaid in this dark-fantasy action RPG, and she’s awesome to play as. However, she also proves to be the most technical character of the roster, as her attacks plant her firmly into position as you use the siren’s song to attack enemies. And just like in the classic fairy tale, you’ll need to slink away from approaching an adversary when they get too close. I really admire the many clever design choices at work with the current roster, and they each play so differently from one another.
After you’ve taken out enemy encampments, raided small dungeons, and beaten mini-bosses over the five in-game days, the chapter’s boss will come calling, forcing a confrontation. These battles are hectic, blending elements of bullet-hell games with Hades’ dynamic and over-the-top boss encounters. Even with a fully decked-out character, the chapter-ending boss encounters will test your reflexes and the mastery of your character’s skills.
When it all comes together, Ravenswatch is a fun romp that shows some incredible personality, but it can frequently feel unforgiving during some runs. Just one wrong move in your dungeon crawl can lead to disaster for your journey. When playing solo, you’re given a limited number of lives to revive yourself after a killing blow, which you can run through fairly quickly. When playing in a group, not only will the enemies gain strength to compensate for the larger party, but your group will also share a limited number of revives, and once those are out, a fallen hero is knocked out from the run.
Generally, I felt the difficulty struck the right balance between fair and challenging. Still, there were particular runs where I thought I had just stepped into a giant deathtrap rather than a sprawling overworld. In addition to enemies packing a serious punch, I felt that the game doesn’t offer enough signs for opportunities during each run, which makes it easy to wander into areas where you are easily outmatched. Those frustrations aside, I still felt that thrilling sense of empowerment from dungeon crawlers, which is made all the more satisfying when seeing the cool cast of fairy tale characters dish out pain to enemies.
Much like Supergiant Games’ Hades, Ravenswatch’s positioning as an early access game puts in a great place where it can really refine its core mechanics and flesh out its fantasy world. With more characters and gameplay updates coming following its early access launch, there’s so much potential with Passtech Games’ promising next step into an action-RPG. It’s already off to an enthusiastic start, and seeing that world and its gameplay evolve has gotten me excited to see where Ravenswatch will go from here.
