Caves Of Qud review – an RPG epic 15 years in the making

GameCentral

Published December 23, 2024 2:05am

Caves Of Qud artwork — Caves Of Qud – the game only looks like this in your imagination (Kitfox Games)

From the publisher of Dwarf Fortress comes one of the best computer role-playing games since Baldur’s Gate 3.

As movie special effects and video game graphics get more and more realistic, the amount of imagination needed to appreciate them becomes less and less. You still have lower budget films, with less advanced effects, but generally nothing that looks like it’s 50 years old. For video games though that can and does happen, thanks to indie developers that are big on nostalgia and low on budget.

That is certainly the case for Caves Of Qud, although the very basic visuals are also to allow Canadian developer Freehold Games the opportunity to create a game on the scale they want. To make Caves Of Qud with photorealistic graphics would require the budget of GTA 6 but instead you have one of the most in-depth role-playing games ever made… with graphics that would shame a ZX Spectrum.

Caves Of Qud ticks a number of cliches for indie games, since it’s also a roguelike with procedurally-generated levels, that means you never see the same one twice. At times it’s in danger of seeming pretentious, and unjustifiably expensive, but it really is one of the best video games of the year.

Although Caves Of Qud has roguelike elements, 80s role-playing classic Ultima – one of the first computer role-playing games of any kind – has also clearly been an influence. Although according to Freehold they were borrowing directly from tabletop games like Dungeons & Dungeons and Gamma World – the same experiences which originally led to the creation of Ultima and other contemporaries like Wizadry.

Whereas nowadays all you need to do to be called a role-player is have some stats and levelling up, Caves Of Qud is much closer to the original concept of the genre: a single-player simulation of a tabletop role-playing game, where you can do virtually everything and where your own arcade skills have no bearing on the outcome of any battle.

The setting of Caves Of Qud is that of a post-apocalyptic Earth, but not a Fallout style one, that is still relatively similar to the modern day, but one where the natural world has taken over and mutated into an essentially alien landscape. Working remnants of the old world can still be found but it advanced far beyond the modern day before it fell into ruin, so you have super advanced robots and teleportation pads mixed in with fantasy style mutant monsters.

Total freedom is the game’s goal, and that starts with the character creator, which lets you play as anything from an actual human (or True Kin as the game has it) to a mutant animal with psychic powers or an entirely incorporeal entity that has already transcended the physical.

There is an overriding plot, which takes Dune as one of its primary influences, and you can probably plough through it in around 20 hours if you put your mind to it, but that’s not where the main appeal lies. Instead, it’s that the game is as pure a sandbox experience as there’s ever been, the sort of thing to make Baldur’s Gate 3 seem linear and restrictive.

It may not be something the game can show of visually very well, but the whole world is simulated in exacting detail, so that fire burns wood and grass, rocks can be broken or melted down, and water seeps everywhere. Every object has weight and responds to pressure and impact just as it would in the real world.

Caves Of Qud screenshot — Caves Of Qud – looks aren’t everything (Kitfox Games)

Character interactions are just as complex, with multiple difference factions, which will not just attack you if you’ve offended them but will come to your aid if they’re your ally. Combat is where the game feels most like an old school roguelike, and so works similarly to something like Shiren The Wanderer, where everything in the game moves at the same time – so you’ve got forever to plan your next move, until you take a step forward.

The overworld map is the same every time you play but almost nothing else is. This does lead to one of the game’s main flaws though, in that the dungeons are not handcrafted. They’re still almost always fun to explore but the rewards for doing so can vary greatly, since the game doesn’t know what you actually want or would deem a suitable reward.

One thing that also tends to put people off roguelikes is that they’re often very hard but Caves Of Qud is highly customisable in that regard, as in all others. It has actual save points and you can tone down the difficulty of the combat if you’re finding it too frustrating.

While the dialogue is generally very well written, with a wry sense of humour and a poetic sense of brevity, it can often come across as self-indulgent and needlessly obscure. Which is probably to be expected given the game’s been in early access for 15 years and the wiki for the game makes the ones for Elden Ring et al. look like pamphlets in comparison.

Despite it all though, Caves Of Qud is remarkably accessible for what it is. It will take time to wrap your head around all its systems and the freedoms they offer but the tutorial is very good and your time investment is rewarded a hundredfold. It may look primitive but Caves Of Qud is anything but, in what is one of the most open-ended and fascinatingly entertaining role-players of the generation.

Caves Of Qud review summary

In Short: A staggering achievement in terms of role-playing interactivity and flexibility, that also manages to be both accessible and maintain a fun sense of the absurd.

Pros: The complexity of the role-playing and world simulation is incredible and seems to anticipate your every interaction. Impossible range of character types, items, and equipment.

Cons: As ever, randomly-generated levels can feel clinical and unrewarding, especially in terms of loot. The script can be self-indulgent at times.

Score: 9/10

Formats: PC
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Kitfox Games
Developer: Freehold Games
Release Date: 5th December 2024
Age Rating: N/A