Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms

My first instinct with Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms was to file it under 'Diablo-adjacent and move on.' I'm glad I didn't, because what Games Farm built around their Devourer concept is genuinely strange and interesting in ways that the broader ARPG genre rarely attempts. You are a demon lodged in the shadow realm, forced to possess the souls of the dead to act in the mortal world. That premise sounds like flavour text, but it is the actual mechanical spine of the game. The dual-realm system is the real hook here. The shadow world sits as a neon-lit mirror of the physical plane, and the two bleed into each other in ways that matter for moment-to-moment play. A collapsed bridge in the mortal world may still stand in the shadows, so you phase into demon form and cross it, then snap back. Traps visible only in one realm, enemies that exist in one dimension but not the other, puzzles built around the seams between worlds. It never quite reaches the depth it promises, but the instinct behind it is sound and atmospheric. The soundtrack, for what it's worth, is one of the more evocative pieces of dark fantasy scoring I've heard come out of a mid-budget ARPG, and it does serious heavy lifting for the overall mood. On the character side, your first puppet is chosen from a classic trinity: a warrior, a rogue archer, or a mage. But as you progress, the Devourer accumulates more souls, and the roster expands to include genuinely odd options. A stone golem that tanks but plods. A giant wasp built entirely around poison stacking. Each puppet levels independently, each carries its own health pool, and swapping between them mid-fight to cover a low-health puppet with a fresh one is a legitimately smart survival mechanic. The banter between the Devourer and its unwilling servants is another quiet pleasure. The demon barks orders in self-important Old English cadences, the puppets push back with their own personalities, and the friction between them does more for the world-building than most of the exposition. None of that changes the fact that the combat itself is a chore. Attacks feel like they are landing through wet concrete. Click registration misses enough to become irritating. Later chapters strip away the interesting lore-heavy questing of the first act and lean hard into combat encounters that the engine is simply not responsive enough to make satisfying. The lore, too, asks a lot of the player. The Heretic Kingdoms world is dense with factions, orders, and political history, and the game assumes familiarity without offering enough footholds for newcomers. Fans of the 2004 predecessor Kult: Heretic Kingdoms will find much to chew on. Everyone else may find themselves skimming dialogue to get back to the next area. Add to that some punishing load screens, an episodic structure that ends mid-story, and a skill system with no respec option, and the friction accumulates. Where Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms sits in 2025 is as a flawed prototype for a better game that was eventually delivered, at least in part, by the 2018 follow-up Shadows: Awakening. If you care about the Heretic Kingdoms lore or you want to see where the puppet mechanic began, there is genuine craft here worth experiencing. If you need tight, responsive action to stay engaged, this one will test your patience before the credits.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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