Dishonored and Citizen Sleeper collide in Duskpunk, a dice-rolling steampunk RPG that has me trading secrets and picking pockets to survive

Duskpunk opens with you being dumped into a barge full of corpses as you try to alert battlefield cleaners that you're not a corpse. Bleak – but in this world, it's the best thing that could have happened to you. Narrowly avoiding being pulped to create sci-fi fuel that powers the machinery of war, you can try to start anew – that is, if you can avoid being clocked as a deserter. Even death isn't enough to stop them from trying to send you back to the frontline.

Duskpunk is a dice RPG set in the bleak steampunk city of Dredgeport that comes from solo dev James Patton, who also made The Hidden Isle and the underrated Silicon Dreams. Inspired by Dishonored's vibe and Citizen Sleeper's dice rolling mechanics, Duskpunk's mysterious world also reminds me of Fallen London (AKA Echo Bazaar for oldheads like me), and the vertically presented Disco Elysium's internal conversation mechanics. Still, Duskpunk has plenty of its own identity – giving lots of opportunity to roleplay and pursue the kind of story you're interested in following for your big return to the city. Will you look to topple the fascist state? Use the city's chaos to make a splash in the underworld? Your story is yours to choose.

Barging in

Going hands-on, I pick a background to determine a range of stats I'll begin with. While the "sensitive soul" writer is almost certainly the most accurate to real life, I figure the lack of endurance (true, btw), might hamper my early hours in Dredgeport. I go for Criminal, looking to utilize streetwise stats like Sneak, though I am intrigued by Engineer which, unfortunately, is at zero for me. Already enchanted by some gorgeous artwork of Dredgeport, the ever-present machinery would be fun to play with. For another run, perhaps?

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Duskpunk really paints a picture of desperation across its opening. With no money in your pocket, and badly injured from the war and the gruesome barge trip, simply surviving is a struggle. Picking locations from a map, various skill checks deliver dice-roll based outcomes that differ depending on success, neutral, or failure – some riskier than others. Thankfully, Sneak does indeed pay off, allowing me to lighten the coinpurses of passersby in some of Dredgeport's seedier districts – which, at least west of the river – are plentiful.

Trying to go east is impossible due to checkpoints. I might have escaped the war, but I'm still trapped in a new cage, scraping up loose change to even afford a meal while juggling a variety of meters including the constantly sapped energy. So west I stay, where I'm locked to exploring throughout my time playing, and while the likes of Slums, Markets, and the Poor Quarter have plenty of opportunities for those who care to look – it's not easy to get by.

Eventually taken under the wing of a devout priest Brother Rejchek, he's curiously able to point me towards some avenues that skirt the law in order to pursue my Aims – shifting goals I can choose to track. At this point, I'm aiming to make my riches by integrating with the plentiful criminal element… but the radicals whispering in my ear may convince me to dedicate my life to doing some good instead.

You can only take so many actions a day, and a certain amount of those have to go towards keeping yourself at least moderately healthy. Fail to do so, or muck up in some other manner, and you'll accumulate Stress, debuffing your dice rolls which, well, will do the same. Getting a good night's sleep helps with that except, well, with all you've been through, trying to doze without a nightmare is actually one of the toughest rolls to succeed at in Duskpunk – I love how flavor can come from mechanics like this.

Of course, you can track down illegal medicines to also take the edge off, but that requires tracking down and accumulating secrets and money and finding dealers who won't screw you over. There's a lot to juggle even before military men start asking after you, trying to drag you kicking and screaming to be cannon fodder once more in a war against a country for reasons you don't even understand.

Having lost a foot, I need to build a relationship with one of Dredgeport's best mechanics to get a decent prosthetic. To get the recruiters off my back, I need to track down a forger for fresh papers in a sewer. There's political debates to be had in the basement of the local pub, taxing though it is for my poor stats – though, thankfully, some tricky rolls can be Prepared for at the cost of an extra to boost success rates at least. My diary begins to bulge.

Egged on to steal valuable information from officials, I have some choices in approach – once again making me thankful for my Sneak stat. Dredgeport is dangerous, but there's so much to explore, and the writing is sharp enough to keep me going. I'll be back to cross that river yet. I smell a regime that needs toppling.

Duskpunk comes to PC on November 19, 2025.

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