Graven
Developed By: Slipgate Ironworks
Published By: 3DRealms/Fulqrum
Date of Release: January 23, 2024
Price: $24.99
Long ago in the dusty early days of PC gaming there was a series known as the Serpent Rider Trilogy. Coming from Raven Software long before they were sent off to toil in the CoD mines, the Serpent Rider trilogy of Heretic, Hexen and Hexen II were amazing medieval first person RPG affairs. Heretic and Hexen were both built on a heavily modified Doom engine, and Hexen II was built upon the monumental Quake engine. They all shared a dark gothic ambiance that really has not been matched to this day, and stood out quite a bit from the rest of the doom clones of the era. For many years I've hoped that the series would make an epic comeback but that has yet to happen. Thankfully Slipgate Ironworks has come forward with the magnificent Graven, which is certainly a worthy spiritual successor.
Graven is a grand first person RPG that definitely hearkens back to the days of old, both in gameplay and looks. Though it is built on the modern Unreal Engine 4, the pixelated textures and low-poly graphics evoke memories of the past, particularly of games such as Hexen II. Through its graphics and sound presentation, Graven does a masterful job of invoking the rich ambiance of the classic Raven adventures while still managing to maintain it's own impressive identity. The soundtrack definitely hearkens back to my many hours of playing Hexen.
The level design in Graven is vast, varied and sprawling, with the first hub alone taking over 5 hours to complete. The details of the first decaying swamp town and it's surroundings are meticulously crafted with so much fetid detail that you can almost smell the burning corpse piles and peat bogs, and the following hubs keep up the quality for sure. There are plenty of secrets to find, and enemies will respawn occasionally to keep things interesting. The weapons you use to fight said foes are quite interesting as well, and the limited inventory slots serve to make you really think about what tools you need at any given time.
All in all, Slipgate Ironworks has crafted a fine experience here. The gameplay loop overall is quite satisfying, however I must lodge a complaint in the fact that the game severely lacks an automap feature. Eventually after much trial and error I did memorize the locations, but it would have been a lot easier to get around with a map. It's certainly not enough of an issue to affect my enjoyment however. I would definitely recommend Graven to anyone who is a fan of the classic raven adventures.
