The Emberville demo is out now on Steam, and it’s one of the easier Next Fest picks to justify because nothing you do in it gets thrown away. Cygnus Cross says progress from the free demo carries straight over when its pixel-art action RPG enters Early Access on October 27.
What Emberville is
You wake up with no memories inside the Vitromotus, a huge underground prison built as a magical dungeon where death doesn’t stick. A strange energy called kymia brings anyone trapped there back to life, and over the years it has twisted the place into odd biomes full of bizarre monsters. You fight your way through, rescue the townsfolk who got locked in with you, and help them rebuild the ruined town of Emberville.
The rescued villagers are the hook. Each one teaches you something, hands out quests and rewards, and helps restore the town, so Emberville slowly turns into a living hub that reflects what you’ve done. On top of that you get your own estate to build and decorate, plus gathering and crafting for gear, potions, food and tools.
Combat and classes
Fights mix different attack types into combos, and the class system is flexible. You can switch classes at any time, and classes can inherit active and passive skills from others you’ve already learned, so there’s room to build something a little strange. Weapons and skills level up through use, items and help from the people you rescue, and there’s a character creator with dozens of hair, beard and face options.
What’s in the demo, and what comes next
The Next Fest demo is the game’s Prologue, the opening chapter that introduces the world, characters and core systems. Cygnus Cross calls it the quality bar for the rest of the game. Saves from it carry over to Early Access. That doesn’t apply to the earlier creator and press preview, so if you played that build, you’ll start fresh.
Early Access opens with the first major biome. The studio plans its first update within about a month of launch, adding the final boss of that first biome, better controller support, more languages, fixes and a development roadmap. Over Early Access the game is meant to grow to nine biomes, and the 1.0 plans include co-op, mod support and console releases. No consoles or dates have been named yet.
Where to get it
Emberville has a GOG page for October 27, so that’s the place to look if you’d rather own a DRM-free copy. The demo itself is on Steam for Windows, and you can wishlist the Early Access release there too. Neither store lists a price yet. No age rating is listed yet, but the Steam content notes mention cartoon-style combat with exploding bodies plus fictional alcohol and fantasy drugs.
It’s part of Steam Next Fest, which runs through October 26 at 10am PT, and our Next Fest roundup has more demos worth a look. For more PC news, check our PC hub.
If you like the sound of a dungeon crawl that slowly turns into a town you care about, the Prologue is a free way to find out, and a week from now you can just keep going.