Lurking behind a dated exterior is a limited but sophisticated RPG with a unique setting and some memorable new ideas.
I think it counts for a lot when a role-playing game comes along and it’s different. There are so many games that try to do what other games do, they end up struggling to stand out – especially when they don’t have the resources larger projects do. But with Thaumaturge, developer Fool’s Theory (the Polish studio remaking The Witcher 1 for CD Projekt Red, by the way) has played it smart. It’s focused on the differences and not been afraid to leave other things out, and it means that behind Thaumaturge’s admittedly dated exterior, there are some genuinely interesting things here.
The Thaumaturge reviewDeveloper: Fool’s TheoryPublisher: 11 bit StudiosPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on Steam, and coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox S/X later this year.
There’s a lot about The Thaumaturge I admire. Let’s take the setting and the subject matter first, because it also helps explain the game. Do you know what a Thaumaturge is? I doubt it – I didn’t either. It’s a term taken from our real world to mean a person who performs miracles or wonders. Specifically, in this game’s case, a Thaumaturge is capable of reading people’s thoughts (and influencing them), seeing those thoughts imprinted on objects, and befriending demons. And within that description are the game’s big ideas.
Really, The Thaumaturge is a detective game, because nearly everything you’re asked to do in the game involves going to an area and looking for clues that have emotional imprints on, and finding enough of them to draw a conclusion about the case in question. You then present this to someone, there’s maybe a punch-up, and then you do it all again. Broadly, that’s the loop of the game. There’s no looting, no trading, none of that – in fact there’s no inventory at all. It’s quite a breezy experience because of it.
Demons are a key part of all of this. They’re thematically what empowers you as a Thaumaturge, each Thaumaturge supposedly having one, a demon – and some having more than one. They fight with you, they empower you outside of combat, and they’re what gives you an edge. They’re a bit like Pokémon, only warped and twisted versions of them (they’re all pulled from folklore and their backgrounds make for some fascinating reading in the game’s codex). Your character Wiktor often talks to his demon, Upyr, not that you can understand what it says, though Wiktor apparently can. It’s his lifelong friend and has been with him since he was a boy.