Dread Delusion vexes me. It's maybe the perfect game for me, one I really want to keep digging into, but like Gloomwood before it, Dread Delusion might be too good to play unfinished. I've c
Dread Delusion (opens in new tab) vexes me. It’s maybe the perfect game for me, one I really want to keep digging into, but like Gloomwood before it, Dread Delusion might be too good to play unfinished (opens in new tab). I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t keep playing it in early access. You play it now if you haven’t, precisely once, but then you gotta wait.
This first-person, open world RPG started life as a Haunted PS1 Demo Disc—a regularly-released compilation of horror-adjacent retro 3D indie demos—entry in February 2020. Like Disco Elysium before it, it does a phenomenal job of hinting at a much larger world from the perspective of an utter backwater. You’re a recently-released prisoner exploring the Oneiric Isles, a collection of asteroids orbiting a remote, blood-red star in a medieval society that took to the skies in magical airships after an ancient calamity on the planet below.
(Image credit: Lovely Hellplace)
Like Planescape Torment or The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Dread Delusion mashes an utterly alien world with some of the comfortable trappings of fantasy roleplaying to great effect. It’s a shattered landscape under a blood-red sky with the “neuron star” hovering uncomfortably close by, but that landscape is dotted with wattle and daub ye olde buildings inhabited by cor blimey peasants. The airships are made of wood and piloted by pointy-hatted wizards, while the classic fantasy inquisition is being waged by atheists seeking to slay the last meddling gods.
After releasing into early access (opens in new tab) last summer, Dread Delusion has received periodic updates inching it ever closer to 1.
