Deadhaus Sonata Early Access Review - Legacy of Pain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCS6a3muVBs

Ah, Denis Dyack, it’s a name I hadn’t heard in years, yet one that was instantly recognizable the moment it came up. If you are less familiar with who that is, Denis was the mastermind behind one of my personal favorites, 1996’s brutal classic, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, where he served as game director. Through his many years in the industry, Dyack built a reputation around his dense, layered narratives and is perhaps best remembered for twisting familiar genres into darker, more mature territory. He’s contributed to games such as the excellent Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and, er… less notably, the critically panned Too Human, a game whose history is a video of its own, including a ridiculous 10‑year development cycle, a lawsuit gone bad, and perhaps being the only game I can think of that was quite literally ordered to be destroyed. We all know the whole ET buried in a crater story, but my God! Through the good and the bad, it's finally time for his latest project, releasing in an unfinished state, mind you: Deadhaus Sonata, sinking its fangs into early access. Will we be crying SAY VICTUS once more? Or do all legends fall? Why don’t we find out as we take a look in our full early access review!

Deadhaus Sonata is a self-described, “narrative-driven action RPG” that, alongside the leadership of Dyack, is being created by a small indie team of around 10 called Apocalypse Studios. Players will explore large open environments and dank, tricky labyrinths, taking on various quests from the third-person perspective, either alone or with up to a planned 5 players online. All of the genre's greatest hits are here: battering foes and bosses with an assortment of spells and attacks, exploring for loot and treasures, and growing more powerful with each felled foe, but the game also has some interesting ideas of its own that aren’t often seen in games, for better or worse. 

While many classes like Ghouls and Wraiths are planned for what will be a free-to-play experience, this early access build only allowed me to play as the blood-sucking vampire, which, in fairness, is probably the one I would have selected anyway because I fuckin’ love vampires! Plus, the whole Legacy of Kain connection, you get it! Now before I really get into the nitty-gritty of this game, I want to stress, this is early access, and believe me, Deadhaus Sonata stretches that term like fresh mozzarella. 

I also want to say that I love the idea behind this game, as Dyack himself has expressed wanting to create something truly different, something that can separate itself from tired clichés of AAA gaming which have beaten us to a bloody pulp for well over a decade now. That’s great and all, talk is easy and a strong message is important, but I am also a believer that actions speak louder than words and thus far, Deadhaus Sonata proves that sometimes having a unique concept and vision isn’t enough. 

Straight away when booting up Deadhaus Sonata, you know you're in for the earliest of early access as you’ll be greeted by the game’s main menu, well, after the shaders are compiled anyway. Rife with placeholder boxes and generic fonts and texts, navigation feels immediately wonky with half-assed controller support that much like Homer Simpson, only works when it feels like it and even then does the bare essentials. 

In these menus are just a smattering of settings with basic graphical options. Surprisingly, the game has ray tracing, which feels a bit strange given the late‑PS2, early‑PS3 visuals you're about to be treated to, but who am I to say, good on them for including it. After punching in a name for your character, it’s time to set off, and for a fleeting moment, you might think you’re in for a special treat. Gruff, beautifully delivered narration sets a bleak tone, calling back to my childhood memories of playing Legacy of Kain at the innocent age of 12. Oh how I wish I was playing Legacy of Kain instead. 

Our tale centers around the complete downfall of mankind and now rulership of Abominations who are, and I quote, “Servicing the Ancient of Dreams.” As a side note, it turns out everyone in this world can do a hell of an Agent Smith impersonation, because almost every enemy looks like a doppelganger. Anyway, long story short, you're a presumably evil vampire, and it's time to feast!

The main setup for this game’s story feels insanely thin given the fact that there is so much deep lore tucked within Deadhaus Sonata’s buttcheeks. It’s a strange approach to world-building, somewhere between the cryptic nature of a Souls game and needing to check out 15 books on Necromantic Grimoires at the local library of dark arts just to understand the basics. There’s some really neat lore and storytelling to be uncovered if you dig deep, but why is most of it relegated to hours of audio logs and reading? Am I really going to sit around in-game for 13 hours of audio drama? The answer is no, and my suspicion is you won’t either. 

Just about EVERYTHING in the game, down to the items you pick up, features narrated voice work and a story of its own, which is admittedly impressive (except when the audio freaks out and you get two voices at once). But I’d argue Deadhaus Sonata would greatly benefit from at least a few cinematic cutscenes and NPC interactions. They’d help players who, you know, just want to play and not constantly read and listen, become invested in the characters, the overarching plot, the world, and the narrative as a whole. Instead, it feels like a lot of love and care went into optional readings that at least a sizable portion of the audience may not even bother with. 

And yet, the game doubles down on its narration-only approach with its Celestial Clock, a built-in feature that adds another two hours of narrative just by clicking around its offerings. I see the vision here, I really do, but I also signed up to play an action-RPG, not sit through a made-up college lecture that ultimately feels confusing, convoluted, and, dare I say, a touch pretentious. On the subject of this Celestial Clock, I found it downright weird. It batters players with a confusing array of seasons, and planets, and somehow determines the kind of loot you’ll receive. The clock can be pulled up at any time throughout gameplay and seems connected to the actions of other players. Maybe this will all make sense to someone, but it gave me a headache and is currently poorly explained.

If Deadhaus Sonata does have something to build off of during its early access phase, it would be the combat system, which mixes traditional attacks and dodges with tarot cards that can be collected around the world. These cards offer different abilities, some that will have your character spinning around like a Saturday morning cartoon character, and others that will suck the blood of adversaries from a distance. Cards can be collected and equipped for different builds, with minor cards available for stacking which will increase certain powers further. Much like everything else involving menus in this game, equipping tarot cards at designated locations or your hub base is a pain, but manageable. 

Sadly, it's a moot point, as combat currently feels laughably bad. Shockingly poor animations, wretched hit detection, and a general lack of polish make the game feel straight out of the year 2000. Players can optionally suck the blood of foes to gain back health, though rarely does the animation line up, making it more often appear as though I am aggressively inhaling the PS2-esque geometry surrounding me. Strangely, you can also earn back health (or blood) merely by standing in puddles of goop foes left behind after being vanquished. Apparently, this vampire needs to be marinated at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. 

The piss-poor combat might be forgiven if the exploration were interesting, but instead, it’s about as much fun as being on hold with your cable provider. The game’s quests are absolutely ridiculous, usually sending you running around like a chicken with its head cut off, either killing a set number of enemies or wandering through dark caves with NO MAP whatsoever. You might actually need to break out a pen and paper and draw one yourself, like it’s the early 1980s and you’re trying to beat Wizardry. Half the time I only found my objective by accident because the game’s waypoint system, a tiny little trickle of blood which feels like it's slowly being drizzled from a tiny pee-pee, gives up on you. Most of the time you aren’t exploring at all, you're just guessing and wasting time. 

Now in fairness, this is an early access game and it looks like it will remain so for the next 18 months. That said, I'd argue that greater polish across the board is needed for Deadhaus Sonata to stand a chance. First impressions can be everything, and when your selling points are terrible combat and exploration, bad graphics, a story that is mostly learned outside of gameplay, childlike menu design, and a bizarre Celestial Clock, I fear you’ve set yourself up for failure. This isn’t even factoring in the game’s woeful performance with a framerate that bounced around like a bad check. Flame effects made the game shit itself, though it never ran particularly smoothly even on my 4070 at MEDIUM SETTINGS. That’s right, I had to play a game with these visuals at MEDIUM on an expensive rig, just crazy. 

What does all of this mean? It means right now Deadhaus Sonata is a really bad game. Can it get there though? Is there reason for optimism? In truth, I think it's going to be a very tall mountain to climb. There are some interesting ideas around the Celestial Clock which, if perhaps better explained, could pan out. Should the combat be completely retooled, the tarot card system has a chance to be fun. And the story? There are certainly TONS of interesting bits here, they just need to be woven into the gameplay more efficiently. It’s nice that co-op is going to be an option, but for now, to what end? To make two or more people miserable?

One thing is for certain, Apocalypse Studios has big plans for this game. Seven classes will be added, each featuring unique tarot decks and customizations. My assumption is much of these will come at a cost given the game will be free to play. Players will also be able to change audio tracks which in turn will change the lore even further. On top of that, 10 YEARS of content are being planned out. This is all very ambitious, but before any of it matters, the developers need to nail down the fundamentals first, and that, my friends, shall be no easy task. Sadly, as it stands in early access, I have to award this one the dreaded Indie Krampus, but we will of course feature an entirely new 1.0 review, should that day ever come and things change. 

Indie Krampus/TERRIBLE

Indie Krampus