Dread Delusion: Knights, Frights, and Trippy Sights
Among the many conversations I had with reps throughout PAX East weekend, one that certainly stood out came from my time speaking with the head of productions at DreadXP, Ted Hentschke. While explaining his love for the Elder Scrolls franchise, writing, and grand scale world building, Hentschke also took time to explain the ideas behind Lovely Hellplace’s upcoming retro, psychedelic action RPG, Dread Delusion. Most notably, the esoteric philosophical concepts behind its world.
Set in the aftermath of an event known as “The World Rend”, Dread Delusion’s adventure initiated wandering through the massive floating land structures that remain within its world; discovering cities, speaking with NPCs, and engaging monsters with a combination of weapons and magic classes. The game excels in capturing the player's sense of wonder with its lo-res, gothic, dream-like landscapes and large city spaces. While I personally think combat could stand to feel tighter, what really piqued my interest here was the obvious time and care put into the world and its history. Hentschke explained how the origins of religion, the human species’ perception of the divine, and even metaphysical concepts like higher dimensional planes played a large role in the writing of this world - one that he himself co-writing with the promise of multiple surrealist biomes to come.
The time hands-on was spent learning about varied magic classes, fighting terrifying enemies with my trusty sword, and brewing potions using a system that was simple to understand yet deep enough to be interesting. However, as a city in the distance caught my eyes, most of my time within the world was spent scouring the unknown. The journey there wasn’t without its obstacles, of course. The trek led me across a sky bridge, down jagged cliff sides, and through large strips of floating lands, all while slaying strange nightmare creatures along the way. Upon arrival, I was able to go into just about every building I passed by while interacting with towns folk and businesses.
One of the more interesting gameplay elements I encountered was ‘fatigue’. Fatigue is a status effect that is built up over time by every single action you take. As fatigue builds up, your stamina threshold will lower. In turn, this directly affects your ability to be efficient in everything from combat to speech to lock-picking. The unique mechanic incentivizes resting which can only be done at inns throughout the world, adding an interesting and organic feeling to the gameplay loop of Dread Delusion. The exact necessity of rest, and by proxy talking to the locals, is what was responsible for discoverability and knowledge about the world itself.
Even in my short time with Dread Delusion, the aforementioned discoverability delivers a sense of reward in terms of gameplay and lore. At the back of an alley, I found a secret path leading to a black market shop selling everything from weapons to banned magics. The merchant there made it clear that the establishment had paid the ruling government to turn a blind eye. It was within this secret shop that I learned more about The Aposatic Union, an organization committed to stamping out remnants of god worship and cultism as now only human made magic is legal under their rule. The hints of world building led me to believe The Aposatic Union was the ruling faction over the city, but in a cliche case of unfortunate timing, my demo ended before I could find the answers I was seeking.
Dread Delusion is set to go into early access within the next two months according to Hentschke. When asked about plans for consoles, he replied, “There’s a strong chance, but I don’t want to confirm anything just yet”. Despite the ambiguity of console play, Dread Delusion will feature full controller support with full button and key mapping.
Written by Justin Hyde