Heretical Review | Fight The Husks Of A Decaying City, And Topple The Tyrannical King.
An Early Access ARPG that promises an intense and decaying world.
Developer/publisher: Three Swords Studio
Socials: Website | Twitter | Youtube | Discord
Platform: Steam
Price: $14.99
Heretical is an ARPG developed by Three Swords Studio. In it, you take the role of a hero prophesized to dethrone Abidan, a demigod cult leader, who has inflected a terrible decay across the land. This dark fantasy, while still in development, offers a variety of playstyles, and hours of challenge. Full disclosure: I was given a key to review this game, but I will be unbiased.
The Mountain Below Sanctora
The game’s narrative is told through item descriptions, world interaction, and character dialogues, similar to the Souls series. Through these interactions, you can get context, and perspectives of what happened in the area, and even what some bosses used to be. There’s a lot of digging to figure out what happened in this world, so if you’re not a fan of piecing things together, I’m sure someone else will do it for you. Speaking of which,
What I will summarize is what I gathered, though some things may be wrong.
Heretical is set in the dark fantasy world of Sanctora, where you play as a hero, whose soul is trapped in the endless cycle of life and death, as the town has been cursed by a plague, and kept other oppressive control by the inquisition of Abidan, its powerful ruler, and his inner circle of Highborn, though doubts and discord stem within it the circle.
It wasn’t only the plague that ruined Sanctora, as it is said that the Black Hand, those who ended the golden age of Gods and ushered in the Chaos of Darkness, had their hands on the revolution that occurred in the slums. All this havoc may have been planned.
But you venture into this kingdom long after the fall. Long after the decay, and the revolution; the now Forsaken Wasteland. Guarded by the aggressive husks of its former champions, scholars, and citizens, but still ruled by Abidan’s inquisition. You, the hero, prophesized by Tarabic the Prophet, and guided by Absalom, Abidan’s Cursed brother, will rid the Forsaken Wasteland from Abidan, and restore peace to a forsaken land.
Because Heretical is still in Early Access, it’s clear that the lore is still being worked on. There are many characters, and items, that are still blank or offer little to no important facts about the weapon, or characters.
However, the ones that do, take their space to offer context and backstory to the decrypted world. You’ll have to do a few runs with the equipment to get more information or complete prophecies to get these world-building lore, but it’s much easier than jumping hoops to find a specific weapon. (More on that in the gameplay section).
Time will tell if they’ll deliver a story with its current strong foundations. But so far, it’s a very decent story they’re working on, and the way they deliver the story through the item description, world interactions, and dialogue, is engaging and somewhat easy to follow.
Into The Wasteland
Heretical is a quick and, sometimes, unforgiving game, as most rogue-lites are. The game takes into account elevation, letting you sneak in shots from afar, or receive them. It’s not afraid of creating a multi-layer environment, creating a world that’s quick, fun, and dangerous to traverse.
You automatically lock into an enemy, so you only have to worry about your spacing, dodging, and timing, as attacking does slow you down. Most of the enemies run towards you, meaning you need to learn each enemy's attack and timing, as there are no flasks and potions cost a hefty amount, so each hit can have deadly consequences.
With the game’s unforgiving nature, the bosses are a fun challenge, though some are still being tuned and adjusted. I’ve had a tough time with the game’s last boss, but it has forced me to adopt different playstyles which I have enjoyed through my ventures. And, while frustrating at times, the new darkness system might make it easier, and some stuff might get adjusted later.
The Prophecy system
Note: While the images are created with A.I., the developers have said that they are not permanent, and that they plan on changing them to real art later on.
As you play the game, you’ll unlock prophecies, which serve as quests or side-quests that, once completed, will unlock a variety of things. From additional skill slots to equipment, to short-cuts and characters, ultimately netting you seven characters. Because of the nature of rogue-lites, you will not be able to unlock many prophecies at once and will require many repeated runs to achieve them. But doing so forces the player to play different play styles, some they may enjoy, others that they may not enjoy.
Meta-progression
The meta-progression in this game is done through Stray Stars found scattered around the map. Whether hidden in the sewers, on top of a building, or along your path, this progression is tied to how much attention you're paying to your environment.
It divides into three branches:
Red: Strength. This branch favors melee playstyle, offering nodes such as increased physical damage, armor, resistance, health, and melee damage.
Blue: Intelligence. This branch favors a caster playstyle, offering nodes such as elemental damage, cooldown, magical damage, and specific elemental damages.
Green: Dexterity. This branch favors a ranged playstyle, offering nodes such as decay (poison), movement speed, crit chance, crit damage, and projectile range.
There are seven stars unlockable on the normal game mode as of the time of this review, with four more to be found behind the game’s new game+ mode.
Ruin
For those who want an even harder challenge, if you’re able to beat Heretical three times in a row (after unlocking the Threads of Fate prophecy), you will unlock Ruin. The game will be much harder the higher the ruin, but you will be able to find more Stray Stars, as well as Merchant’s lost cache, which will give you more starting money.
Darkness
As I write this, the darkness system was changed into something else. This was done because the original version was too harsh and unforgiving to the newcomers, and in many cases could be a “run killer.”
Like the old system, each kill gives the player a darkness point, and once filling the bar, it will increase your darkness level, giving a stat increase to all the enemies in the run. But now, instead of fighting tentacles, you gain a Devotee’s Burden, and by perfuming a ritual you get to choose between two sets of buffs and drawbacks, as well as a task you need to do to get rid of a curse, such as cutting your dash length in half until you kill thirty enemies. But once you kill a boss, you attain a Luminous Fragment, allowing you to clear negative effects of the abyss.
I do not have enough time with the new darkness, but I welcome this new mechanic, as the old was indeed a run killer. At least, for me it was.
Bugs
As it’s an Early Access game, expect bugs. While I didn’t encounter any game-breaking bugs, there was some annoyance in the sewer level with my character targeting enemies below me, or a funny bug where I dashed into an enemy and they were sent flying. Again, expect a few bugs, but the developers are paying attention and taking feedback on their Discord server.
Verdict
It’s hard to rate an Early Access game, as it’s still being worked on, but it has strong foundations for anyone looking for a challenging ARPG with developers who are active on the Discord server. As said, as I wrote this article, the darkness feature, which was problematic for many players, was removed. They’re estimating a full release during the summer of 2025, and their roadmap promises not only more unlockable characters, bosses, enemies, prophecies, skills, items, and quests, but also regions.
I’m interested to see what else they cook up. I’m interested to see how the lore develops and if it manages to create its own identity, and I’m also curious to see what other builds will be possible in the future. But because it’s an Early Access game, all I can say is that I:
Recommend.
And if I had to give a score:
7/10
It has a lot of promise.
Let me know what you think in the comments below! Does it look or sound interesting? Will you keep an eye out?
Great write up and another game to add to my list!
The backstory sounded a lot like another similar ARPG, No Rest for the Wicked, which is currently out in early access. I never knew I would like these kinds of games until I tried that one and now I'm a little hooked!!
This looks interesting - thanks for sharing!