Last year I finally got around to Skald: Against the Black Priory, and wow—this is old-school RPG nostalgia gone delightfully weird. It looks like DOS-era pixel art vomited onto your screen, but underneath that retro skin is a game that’s crisp, tight, and surprisingly modern. Combat is turn-based, grid-y, and elegant. Rogues backstab. Fighters charge. Mages throw chaos. Everything feels distinct, meaningful, and satisfying.
What really gets me is the worldbuilding. Skald starts in familiar fantasy territory—medieval cities, guilds, standard RPG fare—but it slowly drags you into something alien, uncanny, and genuinely disturbing. Eldritch magic, radioactive demigods, and twisted cults make you feel like you’re descending into a world completely removed from anything human, and the initial grounded context makes the horror hit that much harder.
The writing is sharp and unnerving, the systems matter, and skills actually do stuff—lockpick a chest, snuff a torch, climb a wall—everything feeds into tension and exploration. Pixelated 2d6 dice rolls echo classic CRPGs but never get in the way. By the final level, the game dives fully into derangement, then eases out with a deliberately goofy epilogue that had me laughing. Skald is ugly, sharp, mean, and one of the best RPG surprises of last year.
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