As I get older, I can’t help but feel more and more drawn to the world of the weird. Games like Disillusion and Cruelty Squad really tickled a part of my brain that felt untouched for the longest time—this raw, unbridled sense of creativity that threw convenience and convention out the door in favor of something that’s a bit more adventurous. Naturally, the demands of the AAA scene necessitate leaning in the other direction, leaving the indie scene to pick up the slack.
But it’s this kind of ingenuity that led me to Moroi, a game whose initial presentation evoked some kind of morbid intrigue. Developed by Violet Saint and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment, Moroi caught my eye with its bizarre mix of fantasy elements, steampunk machinations, isometric combat, and its overall atmosphere that oozed grimdark from every grimy pore.
Having been blessed with an opportunity to try Moroi for the first time ahead of its official release, I’m more than happy to talk about what this game has to offer. Is it all style over substance? Or does its style even out the scales of an impressive top-down action game?
Playing Moroi
Moroi caught me off guard initially. Right from the word go, you’re thrust into the world of the Cosmic Engine, a “personalized hellscape designed to distort any semblance of normalcy.” You awaken as a prisoner in a mysterious dungeon, left to trudge through your cell without a name or purpose.
Blood and gore adorn the walls alongside thick wiring and industrial infrastructure. From the looks of things, you’re the only human-looking occupant of this nightmarish place. A man with no legs and the head of a pig is being tortured just a few cells away. Meanwhile, a woman stirring a pot is in need of some salt next door. To escape, you’ll have to find a weapon acquired via a mysterious incantation, adorn yourself with the teeth of a duck, and lug a dangerous cannon around to carve your way through the Cosmic Engine.
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Admittedly, I was hooked. Moroi doesn’t let you acclimate to its strange surroundings so much as it immediately drops you in, leaving you to pick up the pieces as to how this bizarre labyrinth works. It’s unpredictable: one moment, you’ll be solving a puzzle to open a door; the next, an ominous warning takes up the entire screen, telling you to “BEWARE THE SMILING MAN” before a bizarre creature slithers out from a bound man’s nether regions. It’s what I loved about Scorn, a game that takes a similar approach to its alien world logic.
Here, though, there isn’t a bizarre mix of two wildly different gameplay styles that ultimately make each other less effective. Moroi is a top-down action-adventure game where the camera is firmly affixed above your playable character. You’ll click around the environment to move around, battle enemies, talk to NPCs, and solve puzzles, all in a way that feels more cohesive and uniform instead of bizarrely interrupting itself. It was nice, if not all that challenging, right away.
The game being made with the Unreal Engine did give me some cause for concern, but I couldn’t discern any notable performance issues. Its system requirements are actually pretty generous, with my GeForce GTX 2060 greatly exceeding the bare minimum 1080 needed for a stable 30 FPS. I had everything cranked to just under the highest settings, and it looked both good and stable throughout.
Speaking of which, I have to talk about how Moroi looks. Something really struck me here. I felt some misplaced nostalgia while touring the Cosmic Engine’s grim corridors—maybe it was how the large UI elements paired with the animated portraits during conversations or how the game suddenly blasts tense metal music whenever you enter combat. But it’s fantastic. Seeing as how the game is billed as a “grimdark fairytale,” this sense of corrupted whimsy shines throughout, especially as you proceed deeper into the Cosmic Engine. It brought up some fun memories of exploring the prerendered worlds of Planescape: Torment and Sanitarium; only here, the dangerous surroundings are given a whole new level of glistening detail.
If I had any cause for concern, it’d be just how far the game is going to take its numerous challenges. The puzzles throughout my time with Moroi ranged from simple item swaps to one that threw me for a small loop. No spoilers, obviously, but it involves a freezer and the numerous carcasses contained within it. I hope they’ll become a bit more complex in the full release. The same can be said for the game’s combat, which is mechanically sound, sure, but it wasn’t too big of a struggle to get through.
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It feels good to play, at least. The combat is snappy and simple, with a total of two weapons you can toy around with simultaneously. During my time with Moroi, I got a melee weapon and a ranged weapon that behave somewhat similarly, with the former having a primary and alternate attack, whereas the latter has a cooldown period. While your defensive options are limited to a simple dodge roll, you can restore your health by executing enemies in cinematic fashion, which is always a welcome sight. Your weapons even play a role in interacting with the environment. Your melee weapon can bust down doors and other objects, and your ranged weapon can hit switches or other targets through small holes in walls. I’m curious to see how these puzzle-centric applications will be further explored in the full game.
Should You Play Moroi?
I’ll say this about my initial impressions of Moroi. I was immediately intrigued by its setting, doubly drawn in by its unpredictable narrative and stylistic turns, and fully invested by the time the demo came to an unexpected end. It’s a game that I haven’t really felt this strongly about in terms of its overall presentation and aesthetics since E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, even.
But whereas E.Y.E. was this slapdash, mistranslated mess of a game that was held together with Krazy Glue and the rule set of a tabletop game that didn’t even exist to the public yet, Moroi instead borrows from Romanian folktales and Lynchian storytelling elements to form something that’s much easier to parse through.
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Will its gameplay hold up in the full release, though? I’d like to think so. It’s simple enough not to detract from its other impressive elements but not too simple that it doesn’t demand your full attention. Plus, the promise of multiple endings based on repeat playthroughs, even more viscera-stained puzzles, and plenty of reality-shifting shenanigans ultimately sounds too good to pass up. In the meantime, I’ll be eagerly awaiting the full release.
Moroi will be released on Steam later in 2025. As of this writing, no concrete release date has been announced.
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