An upcoming action RPG sends a condemned criminal into the depths of a forsaken land in order to get loot and save and/or destroy the world. Into the Necrovale is listed as Coming Soon on Steam, but it has a pretty healthy demo that you can try immediately.
Into the Necrovale builds on the kind of room-based, procedural dungeon delving you’ve seen in games like Hades, but has the more hopeless, grim air of a FromSoftware fantasy game. In fact, Hope is literally a game mechanic: The longer a delve into a dungeon goes the more you lose. If you die with all your hope, you lose an item permanently.
And those items are pretty much the game! Combining different weapons, armor, rings, and the like is how you build your character up. I found an early ring that ignited enemies hit by my attacks, making a low-damage fast-firing bow I found very powerful indeed.
Permanent progression aside from items comes via permanent hope stones, which can be earned by winning dungeon delves. You spend those on upgrades and on rekindling the passions of your fellow prisoners. An early one lets you light a fire in the hub area, giving a bit of extra hope before each delve. Another unlocks a merchant, and so on.
You can find Into the Necrovale on Steam, along with its demo. It’s listed as “coming soon.”