The Inquisitor

My first reaction to The Inquisitor was genuine excitement. An alternate-history medieval thriller where Christianity is a religion of retribution, adapted from Polish author Jacek Piekara's novel series, with you playing Mordimer Madderdin - an Inquisitor dispatched to the grim 16th-century town of Koenigstein to hunt a vampire and untangle a web of murders, corruption, and religious conspiracy. That pitch lands hard. The world it sets up is genuinely one of the more striking premises in recent action-adventure games, and Koenigstein itself is rendered with a convincing layer of filth and despair that pulls you in. At its core, this is a slow-burn detective narrative with light action elements mixed in. The bulk of your time is spent interrogating suspects, eavesdropping on conversations from strategically placed benches, collecting clues, and piecing together a branching case. Dialogue choices carry real weight - Mordimer operates above the town's social hierarchy, and a carelessly selected option can escalate fast. One moment you're mildly chastising a contact for withholding information; the next, Mordimer has a knife at his throat. The merciful-versus-merciless axis runs through most interactions, and the writing is strong enough to make even the crueler calls feel consistent with the world rather than gratuitously edgy. Branching outcomes and multiple endings give completionists reason to replay, at least in theory. The Unworld - a shadow dimension Mordimer alone can enter - adds a distinct tonal shift. Here, you navigate a Lovecraftian space collecting memory fragments that help verify or contradict what suspects tell you in the real world. Stealth and light puzzle elements replace the sword fighting, and an unstoppable entity called The Murk drains your light meter if you linger. It is atmospheric and conceptually interesting. The execution is rougher: the stealth is shallow, the puzzles rarely demand much, and the Unworld sections can feel like mandatory detours rather than highlights. Mordimer also carries a shersken powder - a multi-purpose substance he can throw in enemies' eyes, use as a weapon coating, or apply as a healing salve - which is a characterful little tool, even if combat itself is the game's weakest pillar by a wide margin. The sword fighting boils down to light attacks, heavy attacks, dodging, and parrying, but the input responsiveness, animation quality, and enemy feedback are all below the bar expected from a 2024 release. Performance on PC is inconsistent, with frame pacing problems that compound the feel of sluggish controls during fights. Character models are stiff, facial animation is minimal, and area transitions involve loading screens that break immersion further. The critical consensus landed firmly in mixed territory, with OpenCritic reporting that only about 29% of critics recommended it - a tough number for a game this ambitious in concept. Steam users sit at a similar 65% positive across a modest review count. The Inquisitor is an honest case of a concept outrunning a budget. If you genuinely enjoy narrative-led adventure games and can tolerate technical roughness for the sake of a gripping dark-fantasy mystery, there is something real here - the writing, the atmosphere, the voice work, and the world-building all have genuine pull. But if you need your action to feel responsive or your production values to hold up under scrutiny, this one will frustrate more than it satisfies. Catch it at a steep discount and go in for the story, not the swordplay.

Alex · Scout Team

Catch-all

Be the first to comment on The Inquisitor.