3 Dungeon Crawlers to Try

Minecraft Dungeons is a welcome addition to the Minecraft universe - instead of focusing on the usual mining and crafting, it’s a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler with a story and a clear goal: stop the Arch-Illager from enslaving all villages.

The game has the traditional Minecraft charm but it’s not enough of a challenge for seasoned players, though. Many have criticized Minecraft Dungeons for being too easy, too simple for their needs. Luckily, there are several games - upcoming or already available - that are more challenging than Mojang’s latest title, offering tougher enemies to overcome and deathlier traps to evade.

Vaporum: Lockdown

Vaporum is an indie grid-based first-person steampunk dungeon crawler with a bit of a familiar story: a survivor lands on a small piece of land in the middle of the ocean with nothing on it but a massive metallic structure: the Arx Vaporum. Here, they have to explore all the secrets, defeat all enemies, and - of course - survive.

 

Vaporum: Lockdown will be a prequel to the popular game, telling the story of a scientist called Lisa Teller who struggles to survive the events leading up to the first game’s setting. The game will come with real-time first-person combat, nasty enemies to defeat, a mysterious story filled with secrets, and a gadget-based RPG system.

Release date: Summer 2020

Exanima

The London-based indie studio Bare Mettle Entertainment has an ambitious goal: to create a brand new fantasy world through their upcoming game Sui Generis. Exanima, their dungeon crawler, serves as a prequel to the game - it takes players on a journey across the underworld where they’ll have countless puzzles to solve, secrets to uncover, and enemies to defeat.

 

Exanima is highly appreciated especially for its combat system that, unlike in many other games, is truly physics-based: momentum, forces, and collisions have an important role in it. Its visuals are beautiful, its environment is interactive, and it offers an almost complete standalone gaming experience while also serving as an introduction to Sui Generis.

The game is available through Steam’s Early Access, with the final release potentially coming before the end of the year.

Blightbound

The Shadow Titan was an evil overlord ruling the land… that until a band of legendary warriors defeated him. But his rule didn’t end with his falling: his body released the Blight, a fog that corrupts everything it touches, turning any living creature into a spawn of evil. Three new heroes emerge, though, descending from their mountain refuge to face the horrors hidden inside the Blight.

 

Blightbound comes with a fully narrated story, an ever-expanding world to explore, new heroes to recover and use, and new loot to collect. The heroes have to battle through three lands, each with its unique dungeons, monsters, and items. Plus, a mountain refuge that they can improve with artisans to craft new items, and bounties to fulfill.

The game is currently in Early Access - it was launched on Steam just a few days ago, but it has already collected dozens of “mostly positive” reviews.