The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is one of the best walking simulators of the last few years. The graphics are divine and the visuals are realistic and atmospheric. The puzzles are very difficult and the world is very empty and lonely. This feeling of isolation is often a sign of indie studios that didn’t have the biggest gaming budgets, and Astronauts clearly had challenges, but they still released an amazing and mysterious game that gave them the confidence to tackle the genre new, ie type roguelike. Witchfire is their latest project, taking inspiration from the Souls series, the roguelike genre, and first-person shooters in an eclectic way to present a crossover between games I had early access to. I tried Witchfire on the Epic Game Store, where you can buy an early access version right now.
The first thing I want to say is that Witchfire is far from finished. The version I played had many missing elements that needed to be implemented before the game could be fully created. So, I focused on what is actually available. One thing that isn’t really included in the package with Witchfire is the story. Actually there isn’t one. No real voice acting or intro movie or anything like that. You are just thrown into the game and you have to choose your role. You can choose between the Assassin, Berserker, Hunter, Shadow, Saint, and Penitent, depending on what you want, and your playstyle is based on the stats in which each class excels. So a class might focus more on strength and critical hits, or it might focus on magic so you can cast a variety of magical abilities, or you might prefer weapons you just do more damage. Whatever your preference, there’s a class available, although there’s little information on how these professions will affect playstyle. It is a bit crude, which is common in games. You have just been dropped on a beach and you have to start fighting against many monsters that mysteriously appear behind you. The way in which many of the opponents appear without any animation is very scary, because you see them appear out of thin air. Like I said, Witchfire needs more time in the oven.
Here’s a hint:
Witchfire, as mentioned, is a roguelike, so when you die, you have to start over and fight the same monsters over and over until you get stronger so you can to live a little longer. This game design will be very familiar to fans of the genre, but this is where Witchfire falls down, as you lose all the so-called crystals that you can use to improve your character make it better after death. If you’re lucky you’ll get an upgrade, which means you’ll only lose half your crystals when you die, but I found it really frustrating that the first several attempts made no progress at all. You die a lot before you make any progress. You can get non-permanent upgrades by killing monsters, such as faster reload speed or lower health of your opponents. This way you get certain rewards with each attempt, but I find that the balance is a bit skewed. Some monsters will jump in your face and take too many shots to take them down. Some monsters move very quickly and unpredictably, making them difficult to fight. Of course, there are good things to say, such as the shooting mechanic itself, which is excellent and could be a lot of fun with better balance.
Witchfire is basically about defeating the witch, who is the boss of the game. However, this boss is not accessible until you buy access to the game’s so-called Gnosis, which opens up different wings of the castle you’re between completion attempts. You are released in an open area by the boss in the northern part of the map. In between, there are some different difficulty levels that you can progress as needed, which is really cool and a new idea for a roguelike game. So, if you feel strong, you can go to the east side of the island to deal with tougher monsters and you will have a better chance to get more crystals to upgrade your witch hunter. But, at the same time, think about whether you want to play your hard crystals, because the chances of losing them are higher, resulting in a loss of progress. You can then run up to a corpse and pick them up again, but this is easier said than done since you’re pretty weak to begin with.
When you die, you do a lot of things at the beginning where you find keys to different portals that allow you to come back with crystals so you can level up your character. So you can escape with your crystal, but it requires luck, skill, and especially patience. I am not a world champion. If that’s not hard enough, the witch can cast a curse called Calamity on you, which will slowly tick away and kill you if you don’t find this tornado in time. I’m not sure how I feel about this mechanic, mainly because you have to run around the map several times to stop the deadly cyclone, but if you hit it you get you will have a lot of crystals. the chance to jump out of the game and use You Collect loot to upgrade your character.
Here’s a hint:
Witchfire has great potential, but lacks substance. One of the things that will be coming later is Nvidia DLSS. More levels will come later. The story is also an afterthought, some of the upgrades you can achieve haven’t been implemented in the game yet, and without all that stuff, it’s a lackluster experience. You have some idea of what the game will be like, but the developers don’t seem to be in the most comfortable position, so I think it will be a while before Witchfire reaches its peak. Also, there are a couple of things I personally miss, like being able to make the font size bigger so you can really see the little nuggets of story that are sometimes found in boxes between – different If there’s anything that’s an early access game, it’s Witchfire, and you have to be aware that not every game has to release everything, because it’s pretty much an opportunity early on the game and a taste of its future content.
Witchfire is really exciting and has a lot of potential, but I won’t be able to play it again for a year and a half. Witchfire lacks content and is currently a thin cup of tea, but there are a lot of attractions that have not yet been implemented and when they are added I will be the one left, but the- right now it’s not very fun.
