Ravenswatch Review

Ravenswatch, fully released on the 26th of September after being on Steam Early Access for about a year and a half, is a co-op roguelike game developed by Passtech Games and published by Nacon. In it, you play as one of nine characters, each with their own unique moveset. Every one of the playable characters has an interesting origin story, one that fits their personality and gameplay.

Speaking of the story, it’s pretty simple, at least at the start: creatures called Nightmares are invading the realm, and our heroes have to stop it. Each character has their own unique reason for wanting to stop the invasion, and some are really cool, honestly. There’s a very deep and interesting lore, but any more information than the basic premise would spoil it majorly — if you like a good narrative, this might just be the game for you.

Whether it is the game for you, though, relies on the gameplay a lot as well. And, well, it doesn’t disappoint. Being a roguelike, the level is randomly generated each time you start a new game. There are a lot of things you can do there — mini-bosses, side quests, upgrade chests, and much more. Be careful, though — you only have 18 minutes until you have to fight that level’s boss. However, if you feel like you’ve done everything you needed to do, and don’t want to risk losing HP or lives to the level, you can walk over to the boss — called the Master Nightmare — and start the fight early. Ravenswatch can be played with up to three extra people, and there are some rules for the multiplayer: each character can only be picked by one person, the difficulty curves with the number of people you have, and dead teammates can be revived. There’s a limited amount of time in which one can be revived: after that time passes, the dead player will use a Feather to revive themselves, but once all Feathers are out, if you die and the time passes, you’re permanently dead. The gameplay is a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it, and time management is your best friend.

It’s very fun that each character has their own unique attacks, abilities, upgrade path, and more. You only start with four characters, but each has so many upgrades and ways to play, the experience is still very varied, and fit for just about anyone, regardless of your playstyle. Do you like playing up close and personal with quick light hits? You’d love Scarlet — two daggers, a dash strike, and the ability to throw a stun bomb. Not to forget she turns into a werewolf every night, giving an entirely new moveset that still fits that playstyle. Do you like playing in the backlines, being more dependent on ability management? Try the Pied Piper — basic attacks are projectile shots, an ability to reduce enemy defences, and can gather explosive rats to unleash a very powerful onslaught on any enemy. Going over every possible playstyle would take forever, but whatever your preferred way of playing is, Ravenswatch probably has that.

Although, while the gameplay is definitely a lot of fun, it’s not perfect. While I wouldn’t call myself or any of my friends the next S1mple, we’re definitely not bad at videogames, and it took us a lot of tries to manage just the first boss. Obviously, this is a roguelike, you’re going to die a lot, but it can feel a bit unfair that the Master Nightmare does half of your HP in a single hit, you know? Tying into the difficulty, not a lot is explained once you start the game; you’re kind of just thrown into it and expected to know what the different forms of currency are, what status effects exist and their meaning, etc. Figuring it out doesn’t take too much time, but the game would definitely profit from some kind of tutorial.

The isometric view of Ravenswatch is done really well, and everything in this title looks absolutely stunning. Even when just entering the main menu, the game is so well designed; my first reaction when opening it was just a “wow”. While I don’t think I’ll replace any of my wallpapers with Ravenswatch screenshots, I will absolutely understand anyone who does. The art looks fabulous, fits the gameplay and story pretty much perfectly, and no matter how hard you’d look, I don’t believe you could find something to complain about.

The characters sometimes interact with each other or just say things to themselves. The conversations can be really interesting, or really not, depending both on how much you care about the story and how much you care if a guy loves his animal companion (he doesn’t). The heroes having full voice acting is great, everything sounds professional, and it doesn’t feel like an indie studio created this game. Similarly, the music is amazing for the atmosphere it’s trying to convey, and unlike most games I’ve played, it is actually balanced well, so I didn’t have to move the slider at all to hear important sound cues and conversations. 

Overall, then, if you don’t mind dying a lot, and you probably don’t if you’re considering a roguelike, Ravenswatch can be an amazing experience. The gameplay is very varied and interesting, the story is a little slow to progress but really great, and the graphics and audio are both amazing. The difficulty being very, well, difficult at the first level can be a bit of an annoyance, and so is the lack of a tutorial explaining what the hell I’m supposed to do, what all these things on my screen are, and where I am, but it doesn’t take too long to understand. Although the price is a little high, I think that just the playstyle variety and amount of content justify it. Honestly, if you’re a fan of Hades or similar games or any other similar roguelikes, I’d say this is a must-play.