The Astronauts release another great hit with the release of Witchfire.
Witchfire is a roguelike first-person shooter that plays and feels a little soulslike. It was developed and published by The Astronauts, a small studio from Warsaw, Poland. The studio was founded in 2012 by Adrian Chmielarz, Michal Kosieradzki, and Andrzej Poznanski, who had left People Can Fly after Epic Games had acquired it. Their first title, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, was released in 2014 and was an adventure horror game.
Witchfire is an intense first-person shooter where you take on the role of a Preyer, a Church member dedicated to hunting down the witches. Witchfire has an interesting lore, a war between Witches and what is left of humanity. Of course, most of humanity isn’t quite equipped to take on the Witches, as their armies continue to take territories, and the Church struggles to keep up with them. That’s where you step in. Witchhunters, known as Preyers, are more than equipped to take on witches and their countless armies.
The task of a Preyer is to bring back a powerful artifact discovered by scouts sent out by the Church, which lies deep within the Witch’s territory. However, this is a task that is rife with danger. You will not only have to go up against hordes of minions but against bosses and even Witches to get to it. Unfortunately, your long journey to the destination has left you low on witchfire, which allows you to cast spells and even upgrade your stats, as well as almost all of your belongings having been lost along the way.
You end up in the Hermitorium, which acts as a lobby between expeditions. Here, you can level up, equip new gear and spells, as well as start research on unused items. There is also a tutorial area that roughly introduces you to the main mechanics of the witches and is a great place to try out new weapons and spells before diving into an expedition.
Unfortunately, to acquire new gear, you will need to research them. The ability to research new spells, artifacts, and weapons is only unlocked at player level 3. To level up your player level, you will need to use Witchfire to increase your stats. Simple. But at the same time, it is dangerous. The reason for that is the more you level up, the more difficult your enemies will be, so it may be best to work on your research and slowly level up your character so as not to drive yourself into a wall.
The portal that leads to the different expeditions is simple to find; just look for the swirling portal. There are many other expedition areas, each with clearly marked danger levels. You will need to start your first expedition into enemy territory with nothing more than Hunger, a close-range hand cannon to earn the witchfire you need to level up.
You are left with two options when entering the expedition, hunt down your objective or gather Witchfire and artifacts so you can upgrade your character and research new items. Before diving in, don’t forget to take a quick stop by the Apothecary to make sure you are stocked up on Healing Elixirs.
Once you have loaded into your expedition, take a look at the map for information about where the witches’ minions spawn, as well as information on ammo chests and your main objective for the expedition area. Unfortunately, you will need to keep a close eye on your ammo consumption, as sometimes it’s better to go in for a melee strike instead of wasting precious ammo on an enemy with less health. Not many ammo chests spawn, so you will have to either conserve your ammo or head back to the Hermitorium through one of the portals when you are close to running out.
While most expedition-type games are slightly forgiving to players who prefer to rush into combat immediately, it is not the best tactic to use as the enemies get stronger. Using the terrain to your advantage and retreating to create distance when outnumbered can come in handy most of the time, as you can easily make use of any tree, rocks, and even houses as cover when dodging away from a ranged attack or to create a small distance away from a melee attacker.
You can also avoid the fights by making great use of double jump and dash to climb over the mountains and even some of the houses to create shortcuts if you want to get to a specific area. The only downside is the cost to your stamina bar. Both double jump and dash use a large amount of stamina, and it’s not always a great solution when in combat as you can quickly become exhausted, leaving yourself open to many different attacks as you will be slowed down.
Much like any first-person shooter, you will need to keep a close eye on your health. The game can be slightly unforgiving to those not paying attention. On the battlefield, health elixirs are a rare drop, meaning you can’t be entirely reckless with the way you fight if you get into a situation where you are at a disadvantage.
While you can level up your character to carry more elixirs and increase your health, it won’t save you when enemies surround you, and you cannot get enough time to breathe, let alone hit the button to use a health elixir mid-combat. And that’s if you have enough elixirs stored up to take with you.
The plant you need to craft elixirs is called Angelica, and despite its name, it has an appearance that you can completely overlook if you are rushing through an expedition. It’s not the only plant that you can find all over the map. There are many mushrooms littered around, and unfortunately, unlike the Angelica plant, they’re not as benign, but on the other hand, they’re a great help when clearing out the lower health enemies if you shoot them during the right time.
While traveling around, you may come across a strange red mist that leaves footprints. It would be a semi-wise idea to follow it. While at the end of the route is an artifact, you will also be affected by a curse. In a way, it is similar to the grimoires you can find in the many different levels of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, as the curses are usually a debuff.
After escaping back to the Hemitorium with any witchfire and artifacts you have found. You should probably take a look at the Ascension Shrine. This is where you level up your stats and spend your hard-earned witchfire. The stats you can upgrade are Vitality to increase your health, and Healing affects the healing you receive from elixirs and certain benign mushrooms.
Witchery allows your spells to be more potent, and Endurance increases your stamina and recovery rate. Metonia acts like a currency booster, although it only affects witchfire and, last but not least, Luck. Although it is vaguely described, it can practically affect most things, such as item drop rates and the chances of having a calamity spell used on you.
Leveling up also allows you to unlock more research possibilities. Still, as mentioned before, it is practically a double-edged sword, and while you need it, it can pretty much back you into a highly dangerous corner where your only option may be to start over. So, while the stats are incredibly tempting to level, you will have to keep in mind the consequence of leveling yourself into a hole you can’t dig your way out of.
Witchfire has an amazing range of weapons and equipment for any playstyle, whether you prefer up close and personal, making use of close and medium-ranged weapons with powerful spells to get you out of tight spots, or those who prefer the long wait-and-run with long-ranged weapons and spells to do as much damage as possible from a relatively safe vantage point. But these normal weapons aren’t the only thing you will have access to, as you can research and unlock Demonic Weapons, which pack quite the punch when dealing with tankier enemies.
There is also the Mysterium Incantation, which needs researching. These grant buffs to your equipment. This means your equipment and, more specifically, your weapons can grow with you, meaning you can keep your playstyle without compromising too much. This also means your weapons can become incredibly powerful if you play to their strengths, such as Hunger, where if you manage shots at the critical points of your enemies, you can get charged bullets that deal a decent amount of damage.
After gearing up and gaining a few levels, you may want to try your hand at thoroughly clearing an expedition. Much like many roguelikes, there are some fun mechanics that pop up when you’ve cleared an area. Witchfire fun mechanic happens to be Arcana. You will get a randomly rolled choice of 2 different arcane to choose from. They affect Firearms, Spells, and Varia. Firearms arcana are self-explanatory as they can be anything from buffs towards weapon damage, an increased fire rate, or clip size.
Spell Arcana are similar, such as an increase in damage for a specific spell—an increase in recharge rate or buffs for certain spell effects. Varia Arcana is incredibly different from the first two as it can affect both yourself and your enemies, such as increasing your health or reducing the enemies, increasing stun duration, and much more.
The Witch’s calamity spell is dangerous when you least expect it. Whether you’re standing still or moving too much noise fighting off the Witch’s enemies, this painful spell is cast by the Witch. It doesn’t matter if you try to dodge it or hide from it; it will still hit you, and it’s even worse when you have no clue where the catalyst for the spell is.
Luckily, the spell takes a while to charge up, allowing you to seek out the catalyst to disrupt the spell or get to a portal to extract before things get a little painful. If you are unable to locate the catalyst or escape, you will unfortunately have to fight off a much larger horde of enemies than usual, all the while your sanity is draining. Unfortunately, once you run out of sanity, it’s game over for the run.
Witchfire has a dark but mystical appearance to its graphics, although with it still being in early access, there are some visual glitches. The overall design of both the Preyer and the enemies leads to an overly pleasing dark fantasy aesthetic.
The voiced introduction in the cinematic that sets the scene is incredibly well done and does a great job of building up the game’s atmosphere. While it is a little sad that the voice acting ends there, the subtle dark yet cinematic music that plays within the background as you go about exploring the Hermitorium and going off on expeditions is enough to almost make up for it. The sound effects fit right in with the music, whether it’s the sounds of battle or your footsteps following you around like a dark shadow that adds to the eerie atmosphere you find yourself in. It shows how much work went into sound engineering.
Overall, Witchfire is a challenging but fun Rouglike shooter with a bit of a soulslike atmosphere that, while unforgiving, is highly rewarding once you buckle down into your role as a Preyer. While it’s a great game for those who are used to soulslike, it can become increasingly frustrating to those who don’t have the patience to deal with an unforgiving battlefield and an unfortunate downward spiral when you level up too fast.
