Ahead of the Game - Dungeons & Eldritch is a love letter to Lovecraftian horrors in the deep blue sea
Fight through eldritch horrors and live to tell the tale
- Hack-and-slash action against ultra-cool monsters
- Gear up to look hella cool while doing it
- Now in Season 0
Hello and welcome to Ahead of the Game, a series where we tell you all about an upcoming game that, despite not being out yet, is available for you to play at the time of publishing. Through this series, you can grab a chance to play games well ahead of their release date, be that through Soft Launch, Open Beta, Demos, or more.
Not a lot of games can perfectly encapsulate what they're all about from the title alone, but with Dungeons & Eldritch, you get exactly what it says on the tin. It's really all about the eldritch monsters and the dungeons you find them in, with epic gear you can loot from every Lovecraftian horror you slay.
And that's not exactly a bad thing - sometimes, all you really want to do at the end of a long and tiring day is to unleash your wrath on hellish fiends using your mighty axe or your legendary sword to unwind.
Here, you get some extra eye candy with the meticulously designed cosmetics you can buff your character with, and each piece of armour you put on can be flaunted and flexed while you're out roaming the depths of the dungeons for more ancient beasts to eliminate.
The monsters themselves are jaw-dropping - they might just instil the fear of eternal damnation in you with the way they're intricately crafted. It might feel overwhelming when they first swarm around you as soon as you step inside a dungeon, but thankfully, you've got your own unstoppable kit - with customisable builds and really cool skill trees - to take them down with ease.
It's not a bad deal considering you can set your skills on Auto so that all you'll have to do is navigate the dungeons with your trusty virtual D-pad instead of spamming your skill buttons every time a massive boss appears.
So, how do you play Dungeons & Eldritch?
At the moment, Dungeons & Eldritch is currently running its Season 0 ala-early access phase, and you can only unlock one character class for now. There isn't much to do in your home base of Atlantis either, but already the loop feels compelling enough to want to go through over and over again.
Essentially, you dive into the dungeon, level up, and repeat. It also lets you collect Gold so you can unlock more gear that'll help you make it through each new dungeon unscathed. The voiceovers for the cutscenes are missing too at the moment, but the narrative itself about Poseidon and the encroaching undersea darkness feels intriguing enough to make me want to know more - which is saying something, considering how much I dread the depths of the sea.
If you're not an underwater-phobe like I am and are keen to see what the fuss is all about, you can head on over to the official website to learn more!
