It's been a while since a traditional roguelike RPG caught my eye, but not anymore: Path of Achra is a dark fantasy game set on an ancient Earth where gods and wizards fight against powerful warriors and heroes. You are an adventurer making your way through Achra in search of the obelisk beyond. This is accomplished through a series of small, rogue-like mini-dungeon areas, each small enough to fit on a single screen.
Described by the developer itself as a “broken build sandbox,” Path of Achra has that special sauce that makes it really fun to combine all sorts of weird starting classes, origins, and gods – all of which give you powers – with Ten Ways of the World Magic and abilities. These are things like elemental magic, but also necromancy, astral powers, psychic abilities and blood magic.
Achra's combat is all about triggering effects: combining things like when you move, when you hit, or when you stop near an enemy to harness further powers and strike down enemies on a massive scale. You could trigger lightning on your attacks, which then triggers its own hits, and so on, or you might intentionally summon weak allies because you have buffs when they die – something like that. It comes with an automove command , which allows you to move and attack when you are sure a level will be a breeze. A great feature for this type of die-yet game.
Achra was actually released in Early Access on May 1, 2023, but has been updated quickly and regularly since then. There is already a demo, which is actually just an older full version of Achra. It was created by a solo developer, Ulfsire.
After playing the demo, I can say that if you've ever seen a poster of an oiled-up barbarian with a huge sword fighting a wizard riding a woolly mammoth, Path of Achra is probably for you thought, “Hell yeah.” Or if you’re already into traditional roguelikes.
You can find Path of Achra on Steam, where it costs $10 and has a demo version. You can download the demo on Steam or on itch.io.
