Dreadhalls Demo

Roguelikes are not typically scary games, because the goal is for the players to survive the journey through a dungeon crawling with all sorts of enemies. However, everything is spookier in virtual reality, and that goes double for dark places filled with skeletons and monsters. Thus, roguelikes in VR can be quite the unsettling experience, especially if you are new to the genre.

Dreadhalls is a first-person roguelike RPG in which your goal is to explore a series of rooms and corridors in order to loot as much gold as possible, while trying to avoid the nasty monsters that lurk in the darkness. On top of that, you also have to keep finding oil for your lamp, otherwise it goes out and you are left in total darkness, which makes the gameplay impossible, as you would expect.

Speaking of which, the gameplay mechanics are as straightforward as possible, given the fact that all you have to do is walk around, pick up interesting items and run away when you see something unpleasant. Gold coins are tough to find, but you can also stumble upon various notes that try to tell a story about another adventurer that got lost in the same dungeon.

Dreadhalls suffers from the same problem as every other roguelike out there, namely repetition. However, it’s a lot tougher to get over it in this case, because you are much closer to the action. Similar rooms might not be that annoying from a top-down view, but once you get down to first-person, it quickly becomes exhausting to orientate yourself when everything looks the same.

Granted, you have a map that can be used to avoid going in circles, but it’s even more annoying to walk looking down all the time. The graphics are not bad either, but it’s difficult to get excited about them when the same two or three textures are plastered all over the place. Thankfully, at least the enemies are quite a sight, and they can be pretty scary as well.

Even if Dreadhalls is pretty rough at the moment, there aren’t many other VR roguelikes out there, so it should do quite well for itself once the complete version comes out. On the other hand, it would still be nice to see more variety when it comes to the level design.