One of the best stealth-horror games around has passed that 'early access threshold'—it's definitely time to check out Gloomwood

pcgamer.com:

When my colleague, PC Gamer staff writer Morgan Park, checked out Gloomwood's early access release toward the end of last year, he found it in an awkward position⁠—the Thief/Bloodborne-inspired immersive sim was already looking like a winner, but there was barely any room to stretch your legs in its gothic nightmare. I'm here today to say there's a lot more meat on the bone now, it kicks ass, and it's definitely time to get into Gloomwood.

That early access dance is a tough nut to crack. I dove headfirst into Dread Delusion, a wonderfully weird mini-Morrowind, but I've had to really step back to avoid getting burnt out before its eventual 1.0 release. Meanwhile, my judicious avoidance of Baldur's Gate 3's long early access has left me fresh and excited for its imminent release, but I've had to do some catching up to figure out its unfamiliar (to me) D&D 5e ruleset.

I only sampled a bit of Gloomwood's first level, the Fishery, last October, and I'm glad I waited until now for my big early access run⁠—the addition of the Tavern and Market District levels really makes it sing, and I feel like developer Dillon Rogers' vision for the rest of the game has fully come into focus.

Even though it's slightly older news, last December's addition of the Tavern is what really made me fall in love with Gloomwood. The Fishery felt like a classic open-ended immersive sim level, and the Mines are reminiscent of The Dark Project's spooky subterranean monster jaunts, but the Tavern just comes out of nowhere with a slice of the Amnesia series.

You're locked into the titular multi-story watering hole with some kind of goatlike pagan beast patrolling about. It usually⁠—though not always!—sticks to the first floor, and the Doctor's pea shooter