There’s a very easy way to tell if Dread Delusion will appeal to you. Does the phrase, “Like a trippy, PS1 version of Morrowind” make your heart all a-flutter? Then you need to play Dread Delusion. Immediately.
This is undoubtedly a reductive way of looking at Dread Delusion, but it’s also hard to think of it any other way. It’s an open-world RPG that’s very heavily influenced by early Elder Scrolls games, with a colour palette that feels like it was born in the mid-’90s with all kinds of insane, eye-searing visuals. As reductive comparisons go, this one feels well-earned.
A Nostalgic Dive into Retro RPGs
The downside of feeling like such a retro game is that it’ll obviously only appeal to a very specific niche. If you know those old RPGs and are familiar with how they played and looked, then it’ll all feel very familiar – but if you don’t, it’s going to feel like a weird anachronism. You’ll be able to figure it out if you stick with it, but it will take some getting used to.
The flipside, though, is that because Dread Delusion feels so retro, it feels like you need to compare it to games of 20+ years ago, rather than anything more modern. And from that perspective, it’s easier to look at the game in a positive light. The basic combat? It means you can charge into battle with any enemy. The clunky jumps and awkward movements? They get you where you need to go. The occasionally unclear maps? It gives you reason to explore this strange world. The aforementioned visuals, that are somewhere between nightmarish and distinctive? Not many games look like it, either 20+ years ago or now.
That may all sound a little tongue-in-cheek, but it’s also not. Dread Delusion has a very clear idea of what kind of game it wants to be, and who it appeals to – and if you’re in that target market, then this is a must-play game for you.
DreadXP provided us with a Dread Delusion PC code for review purposes.
