Operencia: The Stolen Sun is a first-person dungeon crawling RPG coming out of Zen Studios, developers of Castle Storm as well as a handful of pinball games. Entering into a niche genre with relatively few standouts (Legend of Grimrock being the only recent series that comes to mind), there is a lot of room for new entries to be done well.
From a playthrough of the prologue and the first full dungeon, I have to say I’m hooked. Though the voice acting was a little over the top cheesy during the prologue, the game took the player through one of the world’s historical events to serve as a tutorial for how the game plays. Navigating through a grid-based dungeon to solve puzzles, find loot and kill bad guys, the game feels like it’s a single player Dungeons & Dragons campaign brought to life. The narrator serves as a type of dungeon master, adding story and relaying things that are happening in the game while playing. The party also regularly has conversations, depending on events or just talking about each other’s past when resting.
The starting character is built out by the player, allowing selection of class, skills, perks, and attributes. You also are given a handful of difficulty settings, such as being able to disable the minimap or enable permadeath. Players get to earn talent points, used for skills or stat boosts, as well as attributes while leveling. You will also meet others to join your party, who will come with some standard abilities but are customizable as you level.
This is definitely shaping up to be one that fans of the genre won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for our upcoming full review of Operencia: The Stolen Sun.
