I decided to give Witchfire a chance and so far it hasn’t disappointed. Witchfire is developed by a small polish studio established by former Painkiller developers and you can see the Painkiller influences in the art style. As for the game itself it’s sort of like a single player extraction shooter with Destiny-like gameplay (it even does the iconic Bungie verticality perspective by having the crosshair below the centerline of the screen) and some light roguelite elements and secrets. The game is still in development (their last roadmap indicated that the full release would be somewhere in 2026) so the full story isn’t revealed yet, but I am digging the lore that we know so far and love the ludonarrative consistency of what the game calls Gnosis. It’s essentially obtaining esoteric knowledge to get a deeper awareness for the world which leads to the gameplay mechanic of having parts of the world hidden until reach higher gnosis. Higher gnosis also makes you a bigger threat to the witch which also ties back into using gnosis as a way to let the player increase the difficulty and their own pace.

I’m not going to recommend it just yet because I feel like it needs the story to get you through the game. The start of the game can be somewhat boring because you’re not feeling very powerful and the mobs are kinda basic and it just feels like you’re just wandering through the maps. When you hit Gnosis III the game picks itself up with more challenging mobs but also you start to find more secret areas and you unlock gear that makes you feel more powerful. But then when you’re at Gnosis V the game slumps again because you’ve unlocked most of the areas and you’re just leveling up you gear and it feels again like you’re just going to the motions unlock the last Gnosis.

But I would recommend putting it on your radar for the 1.0 release because if they can add just as compelling of a story to the gameplay and world they already have I think it would alleviate the pacing issues I think the game has. If they can get it all to work together it’s going to be a banger for dark fantasy fans.