I went back and finally finished Withering Realms. I think, personally, it’s another reminder of the virtues of being a patient gamer. I couldn’t help myself in this case, because I loved Withering Rooms that much when I played it at the beginning of this year. But I do think Realms could use a few months longer in the Early Access oven.

Overall I think it’s a fine game. I personally liked it quite a bit less than the first game, but being a sequel is always hard. You no longer have the benefits of the wonder the player will feel at uncovering the setting and world building piece by piece for the first time.

In general what I feel like is that Realms is bigger yet lesser than Rooms. It’s geographically larger, it’s fully 3D, it has more weapons and builds and tools and an impressively large bestiary. It has a hub area city and you can play a card game called “Blighter’s Bounty” (although the next Gwent this ain’t). But the special sauce of the first game isn’t there in the same way. The Curse/Insanity mechanic that was so interesting and so perfectly anchored in both the lore and the gameplay mechanics has been completely removed. The roguelike framework that was equally perfectly anchored is also gone - it’s just a Souls-lite now. The consumables and crafting-based item economy is replaced with just… mana. The huge quick action wheel that paused the game is gone, so no longer can you use every item and spell in your inventory easily. You’ll have a couple of Souls-style hot swappable item slots you toggle with the D-pad, and that’s it. The plot with its twists and turns and organic progression is replaced with Soulslike levelups, fetch quests and dungeon crawls. The wonderfully creative NG+ in Rooms is replaced with… no NG+ at all, only an annoying endgame grind.

It’s still worth playing if you loved Withering Rooms. This is still a very compelling, interesting world to see more of and there are some neat pieces of lore woven in here, lesser than in the first game though they may be. There are fewer “wow” moments, but still some “ah, cool” moments. The environment design is still great, at least in the zones that are hand-designed and not partially randomised. The same immaculate vibes are still here. And the music - still all composed by the solo dev themselves - is still absolutely superb.

And the game has already improved over the course of Early Access. I do carry a hope that at least some of my qualms could be addressed or compensated for by other changes before the time of full release sometime next spring.