Dark fantasy FPS Witchfire gets September release date

Witchfire, the upcoming dark fantasy first-person shooter roguelite from former Bulletstorm developers, will launch into early access on September 20.

A brand new trailer for the FPS debuted at Summer Game Fest, showing off a variety of creepy settings and characters, plus plenty of bad guys getting shotgun-blasted into oblivion. The game's been in development for over five years but is finally ready to launch in just a few months.

Witchfire's first-person shooting mixes tightly-wound gunplay with both light and heavy spells powered by four core elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Developer The Astronauts showed off some gameplay during Future Games Show's Spring Showcase, during which designer Karol Krok said that "each element has its own unique property. For example, enemies set on fire receive more damage; on top of that, all elements interact with each other in intuitive ways." 

We see a little of the game's magic abilities in the new release date trailer, but it's mostly showcasing the shotgun-like close-range blasts you'll use to quickly dispatch foes running up on you. 

The Astronauts is a Poland-based developer whose debut project, the narrative horror adventure The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, launched back in 2014. Witchfire is the next game in the studio's lineup, and it looks like its most promising yet. Thankfully, we now know we won't have to wait all that long to see if it lives up to the hype.

For everything on the horizon for PC and consoles in 2023 and beyond, here's a comprehensive guide to new games of 2023.