Dread Delusion
Dread Delusion is an open world RPG brimming with strange places and dark perils. Carve your own path through the flying continents of a shattered land. Discover curious towns, unearth occult secrets, master powerful magic - and change the world through your choices.
Dread Delusion is a rpg, open world and adventure game
developed by Lovely Hellplace
and published by DreadXP.
Released on May 14th 2024 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 3,491 reviews of which 3,156 were positive and 335 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 16.79€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Dread Delusion into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Dread Delusion through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 | AMD Phenom II X4 965
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTS 450, 1 GB | AMD
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This recommendation comes with a large asterisk. It's hard to put into words how I feel about this game. I certainly had fun over the 15-ish hours it took me to clear it, but I'm also thoroughly exhausted. For context, since I saw that the game advertised that combat wasn't the only option, I opted for a speedy build with high Charm. As such I can't speak much about the combat system, apart from feeling like Lunacid with a stamina bar. I like how the game looks, with the enemy design being the best part to me, and the music that's there has this nice synthesizer feel to it. I think the leveling system in this game is unique, as instead of killing enough enemies for a level, you instead gain "Delusion" as you complete quests and while rummaging through houses, ruins, and other such places. As such, I opted to run through enemies and didn't level up my combat stats at all, which was interesting. In addition, instead of a standard map and compass setting, you have a physical compass you have to pull out to orient yourself and a map that updates as you jot down landmarks. This is important, as quests you receive will tell you the general location of objectives using compass directions and landmarks. You'll need to hoof to each location on foot, since you don't get an airship until the endgame, and fast travel is locked to both a quest and specific areas. However, there are also things I don't appreciate about Dread Delusion. At best, you're only looking at four types of weapons: Sword, Dagger, Greatsword, and Bow. You can upgrade them up to one of three unique types of each weapon, but the resources for that are limited, and only available at the endgame. There looks to be 19 different spells in the game, but I somehow managed to miss the lion's share of them. This means that, even if I wanted to do combat with my pacifist build, my options for combat were severely limited. As for the map and compass, my praise for the ingenuity of the system is somewhat rescinded because the only way to get the compass is from a shop at the beginning of the game, which you can miss. In addition, you can definitely miss the map, as the journal you use to jot down landmarks is tucked away in a corner you can easily miss if you aren't looking for it. So if you manage to miss either the compass or the map, or even both, what starts as a cool way to describe objective locations turns into confusion and annoyance. The game acts as though there are effectively three different main factions in this world: the Apostatic Union that seeks to kill gods, the Wikkans that worship gods, and the Outlaws that sort of exist. You have reputation with these factions, and on paper, the idea of being friends with one side and enemies with another could be interesting. Unfortunately, the best it offers you is that some enemies won't actively target you, as the amount of quests you can do for each faction can be counted with one hand. Quests are on a spectrum of mediocre to fantastic, though it felt as though the lion's share of them are in the starting area. The Oneiric Islands don't feel lived in, with at best one village and three towns, which makes this open world feel kind of empty. The main story quests are all fairly good, with the goal being to get the villain's old band together to hunt them down, but it didn't feel like I got to properly hang out with them enough to have narrative weight with them. Finally, the ending is okay, with two different main endings and resolutions of the quests you have and haven't completed. Overall, the closest game comparison I could make to this game is Morrowind, in both the best and worst interpretations. Once I got the band together, I was practically racing for the finish line because I was ready to finish the game. There's a chance I might go back into this game in the future, but at the moment I'm absolutely sick of it. I would recommend this game on a sale, if you enjoy these sorts of games.
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Dread Delusion features extraordinarily fantastic world-building and hauntingly engrossing writing, but also struggles with balancing issues in most aspects of its gameplay. Nevertheless, the sheer uniqueness DD provides through its setting makes it well worth experiencing. 🟩 Pros 🟥 Cons ✔️ DD features some phenomenal quest design, which also leans heavily into providing some decent replay value. Choices feel meaningful, and due to the very grim tone of the story, they are often not as easily made as in other RPGs. ❌DD is extremely unbalanced in favor of the player. No enemy across the entire game provided any challenge, including a joke of a final boss. Player stats feel unimportant and hinder a sense of character progression. ✔️ Due to its unique level-up system by way of the titular Delusions, essentially items rewarded both for quests as well as found out in the world, the game incentivizes and rewards exploration. ❌ Depending on the player’s willingness to interact with the various systems, DD may feel monotonous at times due to a need for constant backtracking and stale combat. Many quality-of-life items only appear very late in the game, making the early game pacing quite slow. ✔️ While the open world is limited in size, great care has been taken to flesh out each and every corner, providing a sense of immersion in addition to the exploration. One such example is the inclusion of housing as a resource sink for the player, which is expertly woven together with additional sidequests and content to engage in. ❌Despite the art style being obviously unique and certainly fitting, there are some issues with the game’s presentation. The narrator’s voice acting is lackluster; there are some issues with textures, such as flickering, and a lack of accompanying music, except for a handful of ambient tracks of varying quality. Technical Issues and Performance Dread Delusion, as of the time of writing, is pretty buggy. While I have not crashed during my playthrough, I have encountered flickering textures, voiceover during the narration cutscenes that do not fit with its subtitles, floating objects and nonsensical hitboxes, and worse yet, falling through the world twice. This is particularly noteworthy, as dying for the first time is tied to a plot event. Graphics and Sound Undeniably, one of Dread Delusion’s most striking features are its visuals. Featuring a self-described “retro 3D aesthetic," the low-poly art style matches the brokenness of the setting the game takes part in. Nevertheless, this choice of visuals is a two-sided sword; on the one hand, it provides equally unique designs for enemies and the gods much of the story revolves around, as well as adding to the haunting atmosphere, but it can also often blend architecture together a bit, making certain locations a bit confusing to navigate. A real issue is that the game loads pieces of the overworld in chunks; however, this is rather similar to TES: Oblivion, where it’s dependent not on the distance of the player but on predetermined loading zones. This can lead to situations where there is a barely textured house right in front of you, and taking a single step forward suddenly lags the game as everything loads in. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3263991379 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3263991358 The sound, while good, is largely limited to a handful of ambient tracks for each region. Thus, over long periods of questing and exploring, it can add up to feeling a bit monotonous. Combat SFX is similarly lacking, and the game does not feature voice acting of any kind outside of very limited narrated cutscenes. Story and Setting The world is shattered apart by a cataclysmic event. With the surface world uninhabitable in the aftermath, a faction of humanity has taken upon itself to wipe out the remaining gods that had once blessed humanity through contracts and allow the remnants to fend for themselves. On the Oneiric Isles, the player is forced into a hunt after a Sky-Pirate who is after an artifact that promises to be able to change the fate of this shattered universe. There are two major conflicts on the Isles that the player gets to explore. Firstly, there is the hunt for Vela. For this, the player explores the various kingdoms, which have their own stories to follow. Among them, for example, is a kingdom of undead, whose undeath is accompanied by a constant hunger for flesh and whose true inability to die is affecting their internal politics, which the player can explore. While the story of Vela concerns itself with navigating the player through these factions and exploring the events that have led to the sundering of the world, the second major conflict is one of humanity versus gods. In Dread Delusion, gods used to be abundant and have contracts with humanity, offering them blessings at a cost until they were hunted to near extinction. Most of the morally strongest writing comes from interactions between the remnants of such entities and the implications of supporting or annihilating them. Quests can feel a bit linear at times, but this is made up for by how impactful the choices the player can make are. Furthermore, very little is gated behind Charm (Charisma) Checks, as RPGs so often like to do, and instead Dread Delusion relies on the player reading and following through according to genuinely what they think is best in the given situation. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3263991138 Gameplay DD features a fairly unique, but ultimately obtuse, stat system in which each of the stats you can increase by collecting Delusions, governs a set of skills; for example, the stat Guile governs skills such as lockpicking or agility. Ultimately, however, due to the aforementioned balance issues, the player’s stats only matter insofar as you want to meet relevant skill checks to continue exploration. Furthermore, gear applies vastly greater stat bonuses than leveling up, further devaluing player progression via their chosen stats and background. Combat is likewise disappointing; magic is extremely underpowered in comparison to melee, and that issue is compounded by the monotony of enemy types. Meaning that while there is decent visual variety in the monsters you encounter, all of them are tackled the exact same way: weaving back and forth and hitting them with whatever you may have. Even with minimal Might investment—governing melee damage—I could comfortably one- to two-shot even late-game enemies. Ultimately, DD suffers from stats simply not being meaningful as they are irrelevant for combat and can otherwise be “forced” to meet certain stat requirements to continue your exploration or quests by keeping up-to-date with your gear. It is a means to engage with DD’s setting, but sadly, it is not competent enough to recommend it to people who may look at DD in search of a strong dungeon-crawler. Final Thoughts Dread Delusion is unique. It has some of the most interesting fantasy concepts I have ever seen in a game, from syntax-based magic to its incorporation of factions, but I think it is this ambitious world that also simply rubs up to the limits of what an indie game can provide, as the endgame feels almost rushed—not unfinished, but clearly aware as to how lackluster the actual RPG systems become the further the player is going. It’s a great experience if people can stomach the look and the somewhat slower pace and are willing to engage with a story first and foremost, with gameplay serving more as a vehicle to experience said story through. Follow our Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41449676/] Summit Reviews , to see more high-quality reviews regularly.
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It feels weird to say "people just don't make games like this anymore" about a title that hasn't been released yet. EDIT: Game has gone live, so now it's official: people just don't make games like this anymore.
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This is the first game in YEARS to evoke the same feelings I had as playing Morrowind for the first. The only difference is that this a near no difficulty game. Don't get me wrong, that is not a dig at all. This is the first EXPLORATION RPG I've ever played and I had a BLAST with it! The narrative craft on display here is honestly beyond my expectations for any indie game and I absolutely cannot wait to finish the plot when v1.0 drops this month. Recommended 100 times over unless you are looking for a challenge. This is a lore game. You will love it or hate it but I've been anxiously awaiting the final version's release. Truly a wonderful, peaceful and unique experience of a game. The texturing alone is worth a visit.
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In spite of its obvious influences, Dread Delusion is not Morrowind 2. Just putting that out there. It's in early access, and you feel it, but Dread Delusion creates a very unique and curious world that effortlessly encourages you to explore it at length. I think if you're in the market for a fleshed out, strange world to get lost in, then Dread Delusion is up your alley. At present, it's not the largest experience, but I enjoyed all of my time with it.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 16 November 2024 00:18 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 21 January 2025 21:27 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:50 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 08:00 |
