Ashen

Ashen is a third-person action RPG developed by A44 and published by Annapurna Interactive, set in a bleak, ashened world where the sun simply does not exist. Light comes from occasional volcanic eruptions, and your wanderer is trying to find something worth calling home in all of that grey. If that premise sounds like it was written for someone who owns at least two Andrei Tarkovsky films, you are not wrong. The aesthetic is stark and deliberate, borrowing heavily from the Dark Souls school of environmental storytelling while carving out its own quieter, more melancholy corner. The combat is methodical in the way Souls fans will recognize: stamina management, deliberate swing timing, punishing enemies that do not forgive button mashing. You wield clubs, spears, and axes, and your choices there do shape your rhythm of play even if the build depth does not rival FromSoftware's most intricate systems. There is a companion mechanic, both AI-driven and seamlessly multiplayer, where other players can drop into your world as named NPCs. It is a clever, low-friction approach to co-op that mostly works, though the AI companion can feel passive when you want it to feel present. The settlement-building loop ties into narrative progression, bringing characters to your growing home and unlocking quests - it is not Stardew Valley depth, but it gives the world a sense of stakes that pure dungeon-crawlers skip entirely. Where Ashen earns genuine respect is in its worldbuilding restraint. Lore is scattered across the environment without being cryptic for cryptic's sake, and the characters who join your settlement each carry enough personal history to make you care whether they survive the next story beat. The writing is spare rather than verbose, which suits the tone. That said, if you come in expecting Disco Elysium-tier narrative complexity or BG3-style branching consequence, you will find the story more of a mood board than a labyrinth. Choices exist, but they are light. What you get instead is atmosphere so thick you could choke on the ash. The weak spots are real. The camera can be an enemy in tight spaces, which is a problem the genre has had for decades and Ashen has not solved. Some late-game areas feel stretched, padding out a runtime that would hit harder at a tighter length. The mixed Steam reviews (sitting around 67 percent positive) reflect a fanbase split between people who clicked with its quieter pace and people who wanted more mechanical crunch or more narrative payoff than it delivers. It is not a game that overcommunicates what it is, so players arriving cold sometimes feel stranded. For RPG players who value tone and want a Souls-lite experience that does not demand you memorize sixteen boss attack patterns, Ashen is genuinely worth the hours. For players who need deep character-building systems or consequential story branching to stay invested past the midpoint, it will feel like a beautiful sketch that never quite became a finished painting. I like it more than its reception suggests it deserves, and I think the settlement mechanic is quietly one of the more interesting structural ideas in its genre. Just go in knowing what it is.

Monika · Scout Team

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