If you’ve ever played Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale, you’ll feel right at home in the old school Black Geyser. Developed by a small indie studio in Budapest, Hungary, it’s a love letter to those titans of the genre, with plenty of its own twists. Developed since 2015, backed on KickStarter and having entered into Early Access in August 2022, its launch is just days away.
Black Geyser is set in Yerengal, a world where dark gods have brought nothing but venality and greed. For centuries, the Devil-god Rothgor has spread fear and terror, waging war upon the mortal races. Eventually banished, the nation of Isilmerald has enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity. Yet discontent has begun to fester once more, and a bloody civil war is brewing between the capital Isilbright and the wealthy mining town of Deron-Guld.
Like any classic isometric CRPG, life starts out at the character creator. There’s 5 playable races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Feldegug and Rillow) and 13 unique classes, from 4 unique class groups (Priest, Outlaw, Warrior, and Wizard). Each plays completely different from the other and there’s enough here to suit all styles. After tinkering on the attribute screen (time to panic over those points!), you’re dropped into a world that’s plagued by pestilence and mysterious abductions. Without wishing to spoil the story, it’s your job to uncover the hidden legacy of your birth, across a world you’re free to explore.
Since its Early Access and over the last seven months, Black Geyser has taken the time to improve almost all areas of its game. The entire purpose of getting the game into the hands of players as soon as possible was clearly to refine its vision, identify problem areas and put them right. Having delivered over 20 huge updates, including Mac and Linux support, Black Geyser has made sweeping changes. From vastly improved loading times, to clearer player tutorials, improved crafting, new zones, enemies and questlines, the small development team have ensured they've focused on addressing and reacting to key player feedback.
As a CRPG with a large open world with dozens of unique locations, exploring, interacting with NPC’s and managing Black Geyser’s tactical-combat-with pause is key. Just like most party-based titles of old, you’ll need to recruit key allies, discover their motivations, choose your formations and deck them out in any weapons and armor you can lay your hands on, whether that’s from taking on epic bosses, or stealing from a nearby inn (just don’t get caught by the guards). Black Geyser is undoubtedly a challenging experience, but first and foremost it puts its story and unique greed mechanic at the center. The choices you make will either advance the cause of the Goddess of Greed, or maintain the flame of hope to impact directly on the game world. Yerengal is brimming with content to discover, with varied grim biomes that have plenty of atmosphere that are filled with dangers. If you camp for the night, there’s every chance you’ll be ambushed. If you stray too far from the beaten track, don’t be surprised if you encounter enemies waiting to smash you to a pulp.
With a branching narrative spanning more than 300,000 lines of text and multiple endings, there’s more than 60 hours of content available here, not including all the side quests and secrets to uncover. Scratching that old school itch is the name of Black Geyser’s game, and with future launch plans set to bring pets, strongholds and additional content, its launch on March 17th is only the beginning.
Available now on Steam at a discounted price before it launches into 1.0 on Thursday ($24.99), are you ready to be corrupted by Black Geyser’s greed?
