Dread Delusion review

What is it? A lo-fi, open-world RPG that pays homage to some of the genre’s greats.

Release date May 14, 2024

Expect to pay £15.49/$20

Developer Lovely Hellplace

Publisher Dread XP

Reviewed on Radeon 5700 XT, i5-9600K, 16GB RAM

Steam Deck Verified

Link Official site 

I struggle to remember the last time I felt so compelled to explore the fringes of a game map. Dread Delusion draws from the likes of Morrowind and Dark Souls to create its dark-fantasy sprawl but to recall a similar case of wanderlust—the irresistible drive to uncover what every ambiguously drawn doodle of a tower or cave might represent for my unfolding saga—I’d have to go further back, to the physical poster that came packaged with my copy of New World Computing’s Might & Magic 2.

A spectre is haunting the Skyrealms. Well, several of them actually, hovering about in areas of note and muttering cryptic advice; but I’m referring specifically to the spectre of widespread civil unrest. Cults are rising again in the fungus forests of the Hallowshire, nurturing deities presumed dead since the God War; in the Clockwork Kingdom, farm machinery is going berserk while the deranged king—an artificial entity composed of tech and magic—is issuing increasingly erratic edicts; and the flesh-eating revenants of the Endless Realm are reconsidering their ban on sentient meat, a policy turn with grim implications for the living masses across the border. To top it all off, Vela Callose, leader of the infamous Dark Star mercenary group, is rumoured to have discovered a secret deep in the uninhabited region of the Underlands that may endanger all of existence.

The Oneiric Isles are in a state of turmoil and their iron-fisted rulers, the Apostatic Union (imagine a more scientifically-minded Inquisition), are desperate to retain control. Desperate enough to drag you out of your cell with a task that takes you through every aforementioned territory and embroils you in each of their local crises: track down Vela and apprehend