Fighting
Puzzle
UPS
shooting
Witchfire: The Final Preview
You ever watch a black metal music video and think, “This is cool and all, but what if those guys screaming around a candlelit pentagram had mid-20th century guns?” Me neither, but I can’t help but think the team at The Astronauts did to get inspired for Witchfire, their single-player roguelike extraction shooter that feels like a gaslamp fantasy movie with Mercyful Fate as the soundtrack. Its mix of hot-handed running and gunning and more slow-paced exploration and investigation meld into something that is more of a dream to play than a nightmare. Though some balancing of what can feel like downright unfair difficulty is certainly in order, and some of the more obscure features could be made to feel less esoteric, I am firmly caught in the spell of this black magic banger.