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Witchfire plays like a gunslinging 16th-century Ghostbusters

3K View2023-09-21

Witchfire

8.3

ActionRPGSingleplayer

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SHOULD I PLAY WITCHFIRE?

Don’t sleep on this one, especially if you’re a fan of weird horror. Witchfire is an interesting single-player shooter built on a concept that’s more similar to extraction shooters like Hunt: Showdown than roguelikes. Armed with arcane weapons, you play as a witch hunter sent by the church to track down a powerful witch in a haunted land. A portal connects this land with your home base, where you can return to upgrade weapons and gain additional powers with materials gathered on expeditions. It’s fun, scary, and dripping with atmosphere.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played about two hours of Witchfire since it launched in early access, which is only enough to scratch the surface. I’ve ventured out on four expeditions onto the island, which has given me a chance to explore the first couple of camps and other locations. I’ve also explored my “Hermitorium,” which is set in a ruined coastal castle of some kind, and is full of stations I’ll eventually unlock as my character grows in power. So far I haven’t been able to use the alchemy table or weapons room, or the creepy magic mirror that’s hanging in a ring of evil red fire in an upstairs chamber.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT WITCHFIRE?

• The shooting is great. There are a bunch of neat ideas involved in Witchfire, but at its core, it’s a shooter, and it’s important to get that part right. I’m pleased to report that developer The Astronauts appears to have nailed it. I didn’t unlock any new guns, but the starting revolver, named Hunger, feels terrific. It’s an evil-looking six-shooter that shoots rounds that have glowing crosses for primers, and it felt a lot like Destiny 2’s hand cannons—high praise, since Bungie still makes best-in-class video game guns.

• Raid-based runs. The Astronauts have billed Witchfire as a roguelite shooter, but I don’t think that’s the best way to think about it, even though the powerful Witch changed things up a bit each time I ventured out on an expedition. Instead, I think it has more in common with extraction games like Hunt: Showdown, providing me the freedom to shape my own objectives and leave a raid when I see fit. Witchfire follows that same cycle: I would head through the portal at the Hermitorium to explore an area, take on groups of enemies and explore as much as I felt I could, then find a portal back home to escape with whatever loot and experience I had gathered. It’s a cool system that borrows a couple great ideas from extraction games without the added stress of player-versus-player encounters.

• Incredible visuals. Witchfire is an amazing-looking game, which is in keeping with The Astronauts’ past work with games like Painkiller (as People Can Fly) and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The first area I explored, the Scarlet Coast, is a rocky shore area shrouded in mist, with the ruins of a village just up from the beach and a quarry set back into the hills that rise up from the waterline. This spooky locale was roamed by gangs of possessed villagers with bows and spectral conquistadors who could lurch out of the shadows at any moment. The game’s heavy lighting and filtering effects added a level of disorientation and menace, and I could feel it as the witch I was hunting became more aware of my presence and drained my sanity the more I stuck around.

• Cool progression system. Roll your eyes at the comparison if you must, but Witchfire’s use of the Dark Souls-style experience currency system is very well done, and it creates a fun risk-reward tension between pushing further during an expedition and returning safely home to bank the points I’d picked up. Back at the Hermitorium, I could level up my “preyer,” improving his stats and unlocking the apothecary and workbench. In addition to crafting healing potions, I was able to improve my evil weapons by working through a set of challenges to grant them additional powers. There are also spells to learn and lots of strange collectibles—plenty to do as I prepared to take on stronger enemies and, eventually, the boss of the region.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN WITCHFIRE?

• Tutorial could use some work. I like that Witchfire’s tutorial is an optional track—the game even tells you outright that you’re free to skip it and figure things out for yourself—but I think it could be a bit better about introducing some of the more unique elements of the game, like spells and special abilities.

• Lack of ultrawide resolution options. This isn’t a big deal, since Witchfire adjusted nicely to my 3440x1440 screen when I set it to borderless fullscreen mode, but it would be nice to be able to really use all this real estate, especially when a game looks this good. For now, we ultra-wide owners will have to stick with 16:9.

• Performance can be iffy. I noticed a few stutters while playing Witchfire on my RTX 4070ti, which means it’s likely players with older cards are going to see some more serious performance problems. Hopefully, the early access period will include some attention to optimization, particularly for players with lower-end PCs.

💬 Will you be setting forth to hunt down the dreaded witch in Witchfire, or is this journey too haunted for your taste? Let me know in the comments!