[Review] Dread Delusion

“For when Fantasies Collide, The bloodshed is assuredly real. The God war is testament to that”

One of my favorite aspects of the indie genre is the fact that we are often rewarded with a wonderful feeling of nostalgia as developers aim to take us back in time. Dread Delusion looks to give us that grand sense of adventure that The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind once promised us while also creating an experience that is easier to enjoy. making the journey feel more friendly to jump into.

Before we set off on our grand adventure, however, we are tasked with crafting a character that will embark on our quest. This character creator was the first thing I fell in love with instantly. In role playing games I often find myself putting experience points equivalent to charisma, or whatever the nearest equivalent seems to be, so that I can negotiate my way through any adventure. There were four attributes that I could put points into, Might, Guile Wisdom, and “Persona”. Naturally I instantly loaded points into Persona since it included the skills of charm and barter and set off to see the world.

We start out as a prisoner of the Inquisition, unexpectedly being offered our freedom so long as  we agree to help capture the leader of the outlaw group known as the Dark Star mercenaries. As we progress through the opening, We learn more about Vela Callose, leader of the group, and how she caught the eye of the inquisition after causing a series of incidents while attempting to usher in  a new world. Fans of The Elder Scrolls will immediately see many loving references to the series that helped inspire this game, especially with our main character starting off as a criminal that was imprisoned and used by higher powers to help bring in some kind of order.

As we venture off to stop Vela Callose from unleashing mayhem upon the sky islands, we learn more about her as well as those who once served alongside her. We run into one of her closest crewmates and find out that he was once her instructor before she jumped into the world of piracy. He left the navy and journeyed alongside her to help her succeed in achieving her goals. After breaking the trust between herself and the crew, Valuable members break away and her instructor informs us that we can search out these crew members for support in taking down Vela Callose. It was moments like this that had me captivated with the narrative since I was now not only tasked with taking down the pirate queen but also recruiting her closest friends to help along the way.

As I wandered around, I found myself captivated by the scenery that engulfed the world around me,  the sky wasn’t the usual blue that we are used to, the land covered in mysterious plants and mushrooms reaching up into the scarlet sky above. Pairing the bewildering colors and sights with a graphical style reminiscent of games like Morrowind and Arx Fatalis makes  for a wonderful journey. I often found myself simply wandering around the landscape, taking in the sights and sounds. Each mysterious creature had me inching closer in curiosity to find out more, instead finding out if it was either friend or foe, taken often by surprise as I stumbled around in search of secrets tucked just out of  sight. Calming melodies often played in the background, creating an atmosphere that made  wandering around the sky islands  deeply enticing. The change of music as I stepped into town told me that I was in a safe place full of business and commerce right away, each area’s soundscape simply articulating its intentions and feelings to me with each new step.

Played from the first-person perspective, I originally had some concerns in how I would be able to handle this journey. As someone who deals with motion sickness in some first person titles, feeling uncomfortable when there is excessive  camera movement, I often find myself struggling with older games. Thankfully  the accessibility options available helped ease that potential issue , featuring  a slider to adjust FOV and camera movement as well as toggles for a handful of graphical choices.  I was able to enjoy the game without worrying about the headache that would come.

Delusions are these floating skulls that will reward you with ability points with every handful collected. The previously mentioned secrets tucked away in the world often rewarded me with items to use on my journey, but I was honestly most driven by looking around in search of more delusions to build my character. Since I was unable to determine how many were needed for a level up, I often found myself searching high and low for the next one in order to give myself that extra boost. Scratching around in all the games’ dark corners in order to fulfill my deluded fix. Since your experience isn’t tied to combat, there is no pressure to grind out fights for experience, but instead you are rewarded by  simply exploring the world and interacting with everything  around you. I would often find  myself burning through lockpicks in order to get behind a door, in hopes that a delusion was waiting for me. Since picking locks is done through a random dice roll, I was holding on to my lock picks for dear life and really putting thought into what rooms were worth exploring. This was when I remembered that I could put one of my ability points into Guile in order to increase my chances of success with locks and this is where the game really started to get fun for me.

Skills in Dread Delusion do more than just offer you goal posts to hit, but are also useful in interacting with the world around you. My points in Persona had me smoothly talking my way into the base of some mercenaries that were causing trouble for a nearby village with threats of invasion with their giant monster that floated above their fort. After telling the guard that I was a huge fan of the mercenary group and how much I would have loved to explore their castle, I was let inside and freely able to loot all the items that they left lying around while investigating. I eventually made my way to the top of the tower and picked a lock, only to run into the group’s leader. I was concerned that I would have to take on the whole group, but soon I realized that I was able to talk the leader into telling me how they got hold  of the giant monster, only to realize it was an illusion all along! I rushed back to the mayor, ready to tell her about  my discovery and she offered me a reward in gold along with more delusions. She went on to mention that killing the mercenary group would have been an acceptable way to handle the task as well. This small quest offered me two different ways to find the solution, while also  rewarding me for playing the way I enjoyed. There are a ton of moments like this , the game never punishing me for not engaging in its combat mechanics.

In the few situations where I had to draw my sword, I was able to perform basic slashes with my sword while also blocking and parrying if I timed my block just right. Parrying opened the enemy up for a few free hits before I had to fall back and recover my stamina. Fights here required me to think about the spacing between myself and the enemy, making each moment feel more tense than the last. You are able to carry spells and weapons in two different slots as well six items to use on the fly, so combat can be approached just like any other situation in the game. This level of open freedom spans into every aspect the journey and I found myself unable to put the game down. By the end of the game, I was able to see how my choices impacted the world around me and I was even shown the results of my actions along with how I influenced the world around me. After finding out that there were multiple endings, this gave me the motivation to jump back into the sky lands to find out what I could have done differently to change the world around me.

I initially had a major gripe with the fact that there is no map and complained openly  about how hard it was to navigate. I would see notifications telling me that I found an interesting spot, but this information was pointless since there was no map, but after talking to a wandering NPC, I soon found out what was going on. The sky islands often shift around, so cartographers have a hard time mapping things out. After being told where to find the traveling group, I rushed over to them and felt a wave of excitement was over me when the lady handed me the map, but the excitement was soon replaced with disappointment when I realized the map was empty. That’s when I realized that the interesting spots were moments where I could bring out the map and fill in the blanks and soon, my desire to explore unknown lands was renewed.

What you will find here is a world is full of rewarding moments that will have you searching for a new way to approach a situation, as well as giving you new tools to interact with the world around you. The screen has three bars that represent stamina, health, and magic, but there is no other information presented here and that may be a major turn-off for some. I wish there was a way to adjust how much information is displayed so that players can have things such as a quest log on screen to help keep track of where they are going without having to go through menus to get there, but I feel that would only take away from the nostalgic feeling that this game is chasing.

I had a wonderful time exploring the sky islands and cannot wait to see what else there is to uncover in these mysterious lands. An added bonus that I would love to throw in here is the fact that it ran beautifully on the steam deck, making this an amazing adventure to run through while sitting on the couch and listening to thunderstorms as soothing tunes guided me along the way.