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I've had my eye on dwarven roguelike Below the Stone for several months, so I was eager to give its Steam Next Fest demo a play. Folks, I'm pleased to report that the Terraria and Deep Rock Galactic vibes I was picking up were dead-on. This is shaping up to be something really special, and handily one of the best Steam Next Fest demos to play this week.
Below the Stone is an isometric action roguelike where you, a promising dwarf explorer generated and customized almost Rogue Legacy-style, dig and fight your way through caves in search of ore and treasure. Armed with whatever tools and supplies you brought from base, perhaps with the help of the game's many vendor NPCs, you head into the procedurally generated underground with specific mission goals. Kill a certain type of enemy, get enough of a particular ore, and so on – then call in a drill pod to return home once you accomplish at least one of the missions you chose.
The crafting system, user interface, and digging animation immediately brought me back to Terraria. Combat feels similar, too, even with the shift in perspective. It's a lot of kiting around while swinging your pickaxe – or axe, sword, or whatever you have to hand – like your life depends on it, because it does. There are also ranged weapons like crossbows, giving the game some toned-down Enter the Gungeon energy, and the game's trailer shows a hugely varied arsenal to discover. Down in the caves, the ore gathering missions and frantic extraction phase – which sees enemies pour in as you count the seconds to the drill pod's landing – tickled the Deep Rock Galactic receptor in my brain, which obviously every human being has.
There are familiar, engrossing elements here, but the balance, presentation, and endearing dwarf motif really make Below the Stone stand out. Within just a few minutes, I started setting those all-important roguelike goals – tools I want to upgrade, ore I want to find, armor I so desperately need to craft. But I also had to ration my supplies. This is a pretty cutthroat roguelike; you lose everything you have on you whenever you die. You can offset this penalty by stashing some resources in the bank for future runs, but you still want to use gear that's strong enough to handle the challenges ahead. No sense in letting your best pickaxe gather dust forever. What's the point of owning a Ferrari if you never take it to the track?
There's this wonderful intersection of risk and reward where you choose your own mission objectives based on their payout, the gear you have, and the resources you need right now. You can play it safe, store your best gear, and set out with a budget loadout on a scouting mission. Or if you feel brave, you can go all-in for a big haul or boss fight. This is compounded by the unpredictable nature of the earth, with over 25 biomes filled with uniquely dangerous enemies. You'll see ore sparkling in the walls, and you're free to dig through many surfaces with any old pickaxe, but there's the risk of stumbling into a monster horde – shoutout to Dungeons of Dredmor's monster zoos – or causing a cave-in. I managed to collapse a chamber within the first 60 seconds of my debut excursion, nearly dying in the process, which doesn't bode well for my grizzled, pixel art dwarf.
I've always loved exploring caves in the likes of Terraria and Minecraft, but I'm not a creatively motivated person, so using my hard-earned resources to build farms and buildings has never really appealed to me. I'm just a combat and progression lover who can appreciate some shiny ore in a stone wall. Below the Stone has that same satisfaction of plunging into the darkness and excavating precious metals, but it uses it as fuel for a wonderfully dynamic action roguelike that's much more my speed. It's exactly what I wanted it to be, and I can't wait to play the full version when it launches on November 17.
Elsewhere, this Metroidvania scratched another very specific itch of mine: Bloodborne as a 2D Castlevania.
