The Inquisitor review

What is it? A dark fantasy adventure where players try to solve crimes and unearth heretics as Holy Inquisitor of the church, Mordimer Madderdin.
Release date February 8, 2024
Expect to pay $39.99/£34.99
Developer The Dust S.A.
Publisher Kalypso Media
Reviewed on Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, 32GB RAM (DDR4), AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, ASRock B450M Pro4
Steam Deck TBA
Link Steam

There's no doubting the pitch for The Inquisitor catches the attention. You play Mordimer Madderdin, a Holy Inquisitor of the church whose job it is to hunt out heretics and enforce the faith—even if that means a spot of torture. That faith, by the way, comes courtesy of none other than Jesus himself, who in the world of The Inquisitor did not die on the cross but instead broke free from it and then went on a bloody rampage across the world, unleashing his vengeance on all non-believers and becoming the warrior godking of mankind. Now, 1,500 years later, you are a tool of his all-powerful church's oppression in a grim and dystopian world. Amen.

The Inquisitor opens with Mordimer being dispatched by the church to investigate rumours of a vampire operating in the 16th-century town of Koenigstein, where he soon discovers a series of bloody ritualistic murders, as well as strands of a far deeper and more sinister plot. You step off the boat at Koenigstein's dock and from that point on it's your job to investigate what is happening and who is responsible, with the game's dark fantasy narrative unfolding at a leisurely pace.

The Inquisitor really is a relatively slow-paced detective narrative adventure first and foremost. You will engage in plenty of talking in this game. From chatting to notable figures in Koenigstein, such as the mayor and notable merchants, through to interrogating suspects (sometimes while torturing them), learning about in-game lore from religious officials, and onto investigating potential leads with the town's nobility, Mordimer is a detective first and fighter second. There's fighting for sure,