Prelude Dark Pain Preview: Impressions from the hour-long demo

We've made it to June, and so the not-quite-E3 season is upon us: with showcases galore and Steam Next Fest happening in around a week, it can be easy to lose track of all announcements and demos, but it can also be the perfect opportunity to try out new-found lil' gems that make their first appearances during the season.

Case and point, Prelude Dark Pain has unveiled its demo, and while Quickfire Games' Early Access project is still without a proper release date, this paints an excellent picture of the kind of stylish, medieval tactical action that's ahead of us.

The hour-long demo is only made up by the first story segment—which makes up the game's initial tutorial—and an extra battle that shows the systems and character abilities with more depth, but one thing that is more than obvious during its short runtime is the sheer strength of its visuals.

Everything immediately pops, and it does not lose steam in motion. The easiest comparison would be Darkest Dungeon's own animation style, but Prelude Dark Pain does not limit its inspirations to one single game, as the phantom of comic books and graphic novels looms large with a strong foundation of sharp lines and inking à la Hellboy can be felt at every corner, and I mean it in a good way.

There's still some work to be done on the presentation as a whole: a few animations feel a tad bit choppy and I found the music that's in here kind of generic and repetitive—some of the loops could definitely be improved—but everything pertinent to the visual design, from the characters to the vignette style cut-scenes breathe dark fantasy serialised comics.

Even beyond its looks, it's certainly not a bad time. I have a soft spot for turn-based strategy games and their focus on positioning, and what Prelude Dark Pain presents is both very direct and potentially awesome if future battle stages lend themselves to the opportunity. Both the story segment and the extra battle put a lot of their focus on uneven terrain and rewarding movement and ability usage to insta-kill some enemies, incentivised by the extrinsic rewards that come in the mission objectives and the pure pleasure of getting an annoying group of enemies in potentially one turn.

This has the risk of become repetitive, with movement being conditioned only by the spaces that give some kind of extra bonus or the ones that'll eliminate an enemy in one shot, and even in the final section of the demo I felt how some of the secondary effects became inconsequential due to how easy it was to prioritise the faster kill in some cases, but that's where the extra battle comes into play, and I wouldn't be surprised if they added it to show just how much more the combat system can be.

Toying around with elevation advantages and way more abilities was a treat, some in particular opened many more doors in regards to enemy management and positioning, like more area attacks and a turret that acted as an extra damage output with its own turn, and there's one extra character exclusive to that battle that I found incredibly creative, and if that's the kind of bar the future will set, then this cast will be a treat to play around.

It's a promising first impression; it'll still be somewhat threatening to newcomers due to the genre's own nature, but past the numbers and options, this introduction felt incredibly accessible and fun, and there's quite literally nothing to lose in giving it a try.

Prelude Dark Pain's demo is already available on the game's Steam page.