Castle Torgeath: Descent into Darkness Early Access Begins, Preview

Late last month, the team at Dungeoneering Studios released their indie first-person RPG Castle Torgeath: Descent into Darkness through Steam’s Early Access program, and it has been receiving favorable reception ever since. We haven’t yet had a chance to check it out ourselves, but here’s a teaser trailer to give us a sampling of what it has to offer:

There appears to be a strong influence from The Elder Scrolls here, but to provide further insight into its actual gameplay mechanics, I’ll point you to a hands-on preview over at Chalgyr’s Game Room:

It was just another sunny afternoon when you come across a notice board looking for adventurers to help on a quest of exploration and discovery of old castle ruins. Offering a hefty lump sum and an extra cut of anything of worth found, you set off to join the expedition team. At the ripe character level of (1) equipped with nothing more than the clothes on your back, a torch, and a sword, you walk into the castle ruins. There’s a cave-in leaving you trapped in the dark. Torches only last for so long and the expedition team is nowhere in sight. What was that sound? You’re not alone down here and it looks like Castle Torgeath really is going to be a Descent into Darkness to find your way out.

Castle Torgeath is a throwback dungeon crawler that is designed to kill you, the player (I mean who else right?), in multiple and unfriendly ways. Being bitten, stabbed, impaled horizontally or vertically will all be real worries as the only thing that will truly keep you alive down here is your sense of direction and reaction speeds. With all of the external elements that can kill you though, it’s the internal one that matters the most. If your stamina depletes itself then you can quite literally and instantly die from hunger. This is no slow process but neither will it catch you unaware as your stomach makes more than enough noise to draw your attention to feeding yourself and possibly half the other beings down here. Down in this dungeon however food is limited and if you run around willy nilly then death will always be around the corner in more than one way.