Developed by Massive Work Studio and published by Prime Matter, ‘Dolmen’ advertises itself as an action RPG combining futuristic Sci-Fi and cosmic horror elements. Over the years, I played a lot of Dead Space, I dabbled in some Warframe, and I spent hours running around the Talos I in Prey. We could even potentially throw Destiny into the mix. One thing that all of these games had in common was that they throw you into the deep end fairly quickly, and from the get-go, it’s all about the action. So, given what I’ve experienced before, I was pretty excited when offered an early look at Dolmen.

As it turns out, Dolmen plays a lot more like the Dark Souls franchise, and fans of the grindy RPG will absolutely love it when it comes out. It’s an absolute hack and slash versus aliens on the planet Revion Prime, a planet rich in Dolmen Crystals where genetically modified humans, Drillers, have been tasked with colonising. These crystals hold secrets that could revolutionise space exploration and open up the possibilities of interactions with other dimensions. The player is brought in after a horrifying accident essentially wiped out the Driller population and allowed the planet to become infested with a hostile, bug-like species.

As an RPG, players will be able to fine-tune their character, starting from scratch with the Recruit class, or making use of the more role-specific archetypes available. I initially tried to start playing as a Bounty Hunter, a class more rogue-like in its ability and weapon choices. While quick with his attacks, stamina was a big issue for me and I found myself quickly running out, meaning he’d slowly swing his Protoss-like energy beams before succumbing to enemy attacks. It’s here that players familiar with Dark Souls will excel, with their innate abilities to dodge and make use of the fabled roly-poly techniques handed down through the generations.

Players who are able to master such arcane techniques will be handsomely rewarded with materials, nanites, and new equipment that can be used to alter their character’s attributes and increase their chances of success as they grind their way through swarms of lesser enemies and face-off against giant boss-creatures. For those of us who are unsuccessful, you’ll be forced back to the most recently activated beacon, stripped of your hard-earned loot, and fighting your way back to your body as your timeline is erased. Should you fall before making it back to your body, everything you found is gone, and you won’t spot any replacements until you get past the section that’s been giving you grief.

As players take on and defeat the various bosses, you’ll explore two additional sectors, each with its own environment, unique enemies, and obstacles to overcome. The zones become harder and harder, offering bigger and better rewards. As you collect Dolmen Crystal fragments, you’ll be able to call in the aid of willing players to help you take down bosses, or even resurrect enemies and face the challenges again but with better gear. It really does give me Dark Souls vibes.

Something that did heavily stand out to me was the in-game audio. The ambient sounds were spine-chilling and gave a heavy sense of imminent danger, whereas the effects at this stage are a little more arcadey, but this seems to lend itself well to the way items are visually portrayed, at least during the preview release. During a game, the character model has been lavished with fine details, such as serial numbers on pieces of armour, whereas the enemies and general scenery are quite muted and simplistic in design, but this could be playing into the fact that realities and dimensions have intersected and one can’t get the upper hand over the other.

Using Unreal Engine 4, Dolmen features a very intuitive and easy-to-follow interface. For those of us who have been around since the days of Unreal Tournament, you’ll get a great sense of nostalgia as you click that Any Key and scroll through the old-school menus, complete with semi-animated backgrounds depicting sinister happenings, all in a style reminiscent of mid-2000s horror games. The Unreal Engine also allows plays to easily swap between console and PC, or swap from keyboard and mouse to gamepad with relative ease.

In saying this, I found Dolmen to be a lot less cumbersome when I connected my Xbox controller to the PC, with combat flowing a lot more freely and the character being much more responsive to my inputs. Even with my mouse cranked right up to 16000 DPI, I struggled to really get a hand on my opponent, but with the controller, I was quickly swapping from one enemy to the next, and I am sure that practitioners of the sacred art of the forward roll would agree, it made dodging much easier.

So what can we expect when Dolmen is released in 2022? Quite simply, Dark Souls in space. That’s the easiest way I can describe it, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Dark Souls has a huge cult following, purely based on the gameplay. Dolmen will offer something similar, giving players hours of gameplay and near unlimited possibilities, all set in a futuristic Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and as frustrating as I found it given my countless deaths, I’ll need to “git gud,” because Dolmen is something I am very heavily looking forward to.

Written by: Mathew Lindner