The Thaumaturge is an isometric, story-rich RPG with a unique take on turn-based combat, character development features, and investigation mechanics, facing you with morally ambiguous choices – set in a world teeming with mysterious powers and strange ethereal beings called salutors.
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The Thaumaturge is an isometric, story-rich RPG with a unique take on turn-based combat, character development features, and investigation mechanics, facing you with morally ambiguous choices – set in a world teeming with mysterious powers and strange ethereal beings called salutors.
The year is 1905. Warsaw lives under the yoke of imperial Russian tsardom. Its inhabitants constitute a diverse group of different ancestries, views, and beliefs with often conflicting interests: Russian soldiers, Jewish merchants, Polish townspeople, and more. Despite the circumstances, the city is a buzzing metropolis, where one can attend a breathtaking party with the high society, and later get robbed in one of the dark alleys of the Praga district. A city of great hopes and dreams on one hand and dark desires on the other.
A thaumaturge bears both a gift and a burden at the same time. This parallel holds true for Wiktor Szulski, the game’s titular protagonist, who is drawn back to the tumultuous streets of 20th-century Warsaw by family matters. The gift of thaumaturgy is intertwined with family legacy, passed down through one's ancestors. This mystical inheritance significantly shapes Wiktor’s life journey tied around a pursuit of unearthly entities and their hosts. As only a thaumaturge can tame these ethereal entities - known to a select few as salutors - utilizing their mystical abilities to discover secrets hidden within the human soul and speak to the Darkness, no one understands quite like Wiktor how everyone suffers their own demons.
Features:
Shape your story – as a full-fledged RPG, it allows you to alternate your choices and make you deal with the aftermath.
Develop your character – creating your own version of the thaumaturge will allow you to approach situations in different ways.
Experience unique turn-based combat and defeat your foes using human attacks and skills as well as psychic strikes delivered by salutors.
Influence and manipulate the temperaments of other characters to bend their will to your liking.
Tame the power of salutors – use the unique set of their skills to gain an advantage while exploring the world and when bringing your adversaries to their knees.
See the world that’s inevitably gone – explore the uncommon, heavily researched historic period of the early XX century Warsaw, where crime and luxury are often two sides of the same coin. Meet historical figures and learn about their involvement in the story.
Created in Unreal Engine 5 to deliver a detailed & beautifully crafted world.
It's rare that I take the time to review games--but I have to, in this case! The Ambient and rich story is absolutely captivating and rich in depth--unlike so many games these days with shallow stories!
It's not AAA and it shows, but it really does not matter. The actual decision-making and narrative are stellar. The world-building and the historic dive into the 1905 revolution-era Warsaw are fantastic.
The Thaumaturge is a gorgeous game with beautiful effects, realistic environments, and tactical turn-based fighting. I find the story being woven to be thoroughly intruiging, and even the sidestories pull me in.
I think whether you will enjoy this game depends mainly on whether you like the story or not. The gameplay is unlikely to convince anyone, as the battles quickly become repetitive and the role-playing system doesn't have that much impact on the narrative. This game is more about your dialog choices.
It's not like Disco Elysium, where the dialog options are largely dependent on character stats, and so far only pride seems to play a major role in that regard. Maybe there will be more later on, but I gave up halfway through the story. It just didn't grab me, even though I find the setting very appealing. The art design and music are great, but here are a few points why I'll probably never finish the game:
- Poor performance, frequent stutters, texture pop ins
- If you start a conversation while roaming the streets, it will probably lead to a brawl (possibly historically accurate, but ridiculous at some point)
- Hints are often too vague, you don't miss that much if you don't read them
- Conclusions are drawn automatically, no player agency here
- When you're not fighting or talking, you're mainly running around snapping your fingers to find clues; the constant right-clicking to examine a small area is a main gameplay element and quickly becomes tedious
- The English dubbing was realized with both polish and native speakers, which is why the result is very uneven; Polish dub is much better and spares you the constant F-bombs, which for me don't fit the setting (I'm not against swearing, but at times it felt like I was on the Steam forums)
I think the game could have been a lot better if they had taken a little inspiration from Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games. If you had to come to (possibly wrong) conclusions on your own, the story would be much more engaging for me. It also takes far too long to get going. Only from chapter 2 there is something like a common thread, while the events from the prologue don't seem to be too relevant later on.
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Last 30 daysLast 90 daysLast 6 monthsWheneverAfter releaseDuring Early Access
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