Love it or hate it, Stranger Things has the vibes. I'm no diehard fan, but even I can admit the Upside Down is a near-perfect backdrop for the Halloween season, and when I booted up the Steam Next Fest demo for Kingdom of Night, my only expectation was that it would serve the same purpose. It's the '80s. You're a high schooler. There are demons abound. Hell yeah.
What I wasn't expecting is the competent, polished, and impressively deep action RPG at the core of Kingdom of Night. I only spent about half an hour toying around with the game's Rogue class, which granted me the ability to sneak through the haunted streets of Miami, Arizona, an actual Western copper boomtown about three hours from where I live, and I can't wait to play more.
Right from the start, the nostalgic atmosphere of an '80s-themed cosmic horror story is forcefully established in a classroom filled with gossiping teenagers planning to defy their 7pm curfew, newly imposed by some creepy hooded doctor, by going to a secret house party. The tapping of a xylophone in a minor key accompanies a foreboding stringed arrangement as you talk to classmates and begin learning about a missing child, the very beginning of a mystery that only gets more compelling the more I play.
You'll want to enjoy this relative period of calm, which includes a tutorial where you dodge basketballs and bonk your high school bully with a wiffle ball bat, because it doesn't last long. Once school's out, so are the club-wielding demons, lunging zombies, and werewolf-looking beasts. Fortunately, this being a hack-and-slash action RPG, those monsters are all pretty much designed to be taken down en masse.
It's fitting that a lot of people, myself included, are reminded of Stranger Things when they play Kingdom of Night, because like the Netflix TV show, what little I've seen of this game's horror elements are fairly cliche, ripping monsters not only from Lovecraftian fiction but also general horror tradition, i.e. ghosts and ghouls™. That's not necessarily a knock, especially since I haven't even played the entire demo, but it's worth noting that these meticulously crafted vibes very much stand on the shoulders of spooky giants.
I spent as little time as possible with Kingdom of Night's skill tree, as I wanted to focus on gameplay with the small amount of time allotted for this writeup, but from what I saw, there's plenty of depth and variety in the five available classes - rogue, necromancer, barbarian, knight, and sorcerer - not to mention gear and abilities, to encourage multiple playthroughs.
With Kingdom of Night, I came for vibes, and I plan on coming back for the gameplay. I've been playing hack-and-slash action RPGs since I was a wee lad, starting with the original Diablo on PC, and this plucky little indie gem's action punches well above its weight. Pair that with mesmerizing '80s horror nostalgia and the alluring charm of a haunted small town in Arizona, and you have ideal fodder for the Halloween season. I definitely don't regret the half hour I spent with Kingdom of Night, and I dare to wager you won't either.
Otherwise, here are the best horror games you can play right now.
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