Saturday Morning Gaming: Iratus Lord of the Dead

There are a lot of games where you play the good guy who is charged with defeating the bad guy. There are a handful of games where you play the bad guy as part of an arc where you eventually become the good guy. There are another handful of games where you play the bad guy who, due to a handful of ironies, you end up making the world a better place. Games with a morality system where you have the option of playing as a good guy or playing as a bad guy are out there (but, like, 90% of the people who played Mass Effect played as a Paragon). There aren’t *THAT* many games where you are the bad guy, doing bad guy things, and trying to take over a world covered in scorched earth.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead is, finally, a game where you get to play the bad guy. A *FOR REAL* bad guy.

It’s also free this week at the Epic Game Store.

You have a handful of undead. You are fighting against non-undead. When you win, you get ingredients for making more undead. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Combat is simple. You’ve got a band of four monsters, they have different attacks based on where they are in the formation, and you can have different synergies based on where they are. (And, of course, different weaknesses based on if they’re in the wrong spot in the formation.) And you get in fights with similarly positional enemies. If you’ve played Darkest Dungeon before, you know the drill.

Enemies have two types of hit points. Physical ones and stress ones. Hit points take the guy out and stress points make the fight… more interesting. Maybe the guy will freak out and run away. Maybe he’ll attack other members in his party. Maybe he’ll still attack you, maybe. So, like, hit points are the ones that, when they go away, solve the problem… but, hey, sometimes you’ve got a banshee in the back of the group.

Now the game is a rogue-like, so you are going to be picking up artifacts and little jobbydoos to make your necromancer better at being a necromancer so each game is going to be slightly different because you’re going to find different artifacts and ingredients. Sometimes you’ll find high quality ingredients and you can upgrade your guys. Your zombie could use better blood! Your banshee could use better rags!

So what are the maps like? Well, remember Slay the Spire?

So you’ve got a game with “combat like Darkest Dungeon, maps like Slay the Spire, character evolution like Heroes of Might and Magic”? SIGN ME THE HECK UP!!!

And, are you sitting down? Listen to this: IT’S FREE THIS WEEK.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is the splashpage from Iranus. All screenshots taken by the author.)