Hack, slash and pummel your way through the deadly forsaken ruins within the realm that is Ravensword. Developed by Trimatra Interactive and published by Crescent Moon games, Ravensword: Undaunted is an FPS-styled dungeon-crawler inspired by such classics as Hexen and Heretic.

Now when this game popped up for review I was dubious as to whether to take it or not. Reading the description of the game on Steam and finding that it was inspired by Hexen brought up some bad memories, nightmares, and even borderline PTSD. Although Hexen was an old game on N64, it left its imprints on me 20 years later and I was tempted to see if Ravensword: Undaunted would do the same.

The plot of the game revolves around your soul being bound to the Devil of the Keep, part of a strange island that is floating above your homeworld of Tyreas. In a previous life, you were a member of the watch and were tasked to investigate the island. Your soul became bound and you turned into a Deathless, cursed to relive the same experiences until you can break the curse of the Devil of the Keep, end the painful continuous resurrection, and finally be laid to rest in peace in the Hall of Heroes.

With Hexen being called the Dark Souls of FPS back in olden times, Ravensword: Undaunted wasn’t as bad. I’m not sure if all these years of gaming have allowed my skills to be honed to a point where I can dungeon crawl better than those pesky goblins attempting to steal all the loot, or it was just not as difficult, but that was level one… Level two was a different story, I was quickly overwhelmed within ambushes by a multitude of skeletons and rats.

I now knew the extent that the developers went to lull me into a false sense of security. I then realized I was only running on normal, so I changed the difficulty to hard and very quickly had flashbacks of playing Hexen and not being able to pass the first areas, but being still in development only 3 levels are available at the moment.

While running through the levels, you will come across multiple different weapons with scaling rarity levels, but don’t get attached to your weapons as they will become damaged the more you use them, and eventually to a point where they break. Each weapon has different attributes and consists of swords, maces, hammers, and battle staves. The battle staves were especially fun to use and quickly became my weapon of choice. Being able to destroy the armies of the damned from afar was the best tactic I could come up with until I ran out of mana.

In Ravensword: Undaunted you have a hideout where you can sell/buy weapons from a merchant and level up your character’s stats, as well as improve your health, melee prowess, or increase your arcane reserve to be a devastating warlock. Now with the game being in early access, I did encounter a few bugs/flaws, which required me to quit the menu, but otherwise, the gameplay felt super smooth and seamless. The only real bugs I came across were that I fell off a cliff in a particular spot, I did not incur death. Instead, I was falling through the final plane in an infinite cycle of madness.

The audio in the game consisted of a creepy, eerie backing track that really made you feel secluded as you journeyed through your quest to examine the mysterious floating island, all while you were eradicating the undead. The atmosphere in this game was extremely immersive and I couldn’t stop playing. Graphically the game was great and on ultra settings being run behind an i7, RTX 2060, and 16GB of RAM, it held a solid 144FPS. The level designs really made you feel alone and like a wandering soul attempting to break your curse, lonely until you enter a room and all the gates lock, before something like ten million skeletons spawn to take you out.

All in all the game ran, sounded, and looked great. Although a few bugs here and there, the developers are updating the game constantly with one only happening a day or two ago which increased the difficulty by reducing weapon spawns and the rarity. With the nostalgia and the immersion factor if you are a fan of games like Doom, Hexen, Heretic, or Duke Nukem I highly recommend giving it a shot.

Written by: Bigfoot