Rogue Lords (PC) Demo Preview

I’d like to begin this article by asking you folks to think back to 2020’s PC Gaming Show. You may recall a game by the name of Rogue Lords which was given some time on the show floor. Rogue Lords is the upcoming title from the trio of Leikir, Cyanide, and publisher Nacon. In Rogue Lords, you indirectly control the Devil, ordering his unholy minions to go forth and wreak havoc in his name.

During the most recent Steam Next Fest, the game was among more than nine hundred titles that had a playable demo available for about a week. I managed to record a fair bit of video footage of said demo before the Next Fest ended. I’m quite late getting around to this, but even so, I’d like to offer my initial thoughts on what was playable of Rogue Lords in said demo.

I stated within my report on last year’s PC Gaming Show that what was shown of Rogue Lords during the conference strongly reminded me of Iratus: Lord of the Dead. Now that I’ve played its demo, that resemblance has been heavily reinforced. However, let’s dive into this upcoming title and stop wasting time, shall we?

I’m going to try my best to keep this article from becoming a simple compare-and-contrast affair between Rogue Lords and Iratus: Lord of the Dead. However, I do want to make you aware that the two titles have quite a bit in common in terms of both plot and gameplay mechanics. For example, they both begin with similar stories told within their introductory cutscenes that set the stage for the game.

Rogue Lords commences with the Devil narrating the tale of how a decade before the game’s events, he was banished from the mortal plane by none other than Van Helsing and his so-called “demon hunters”. There were sadly no Warglaives of Azzinoth in sight, though. After his defeat, the Devil retreated to Hell and consumed as many condemned souls as he could in order to regain his strength. That is until those sin-saturated souls strangely stopped streaming into his sanctuary.

Once he felt he had recuperated sufficiently enough, the Devil forged a new link between himself and those who signed a pact with him in the mortal realm. The individuals in question are actually noteworthy figures from both history and folklore. The first three so-called Disciples whom you enlist to aid you in your unholy crusade are Dracula, Bloody Mary, and the Headless Horseman.

Through his Disciples, the Devil is capable of developing a sense of what’s happening on Earth. He dares not return to the realm of the living in person just yet, as he and his minions aren’t strong enough to take on Van Helsing and his forces a second time. It doesn’t quite appear as though the Devil can possess those in his service and see directly through their eyes, but he can see them and their surroundings. He can also even personally aid them when necessary.

To quickly return to my brief coverage of Rogue Lords at last year’s PC Gaming Show, you may remember from that article that the Devil can effectively help his Disciples cheat during combat by doing such things as lowering the health bars of their enemies. The Devil does this with a force known as Diabolic Essence. Each action he takes to assist his minions costs a certain amount of this essence based on how significant the Devil’s actions are.

For example, reducing an enemy’s health meter by a large amount will consume significantly larger amounts of Diabolic Essence than doing something less consequential, like reducing the cooldown of one of your Disciples’ abilities. You have a specific amount of Diabolic Essence during each run of Rogue Lords. I would very strongly advise that you keep a close eye on your reserves and be exceptionally wary when spending them. Running out of Diabolic Essence is the primary failure state within the game.

At the start of every turn within an instance of combat, your enemies will announce their intentions. That is, each adversary will signal which of your Disciples they plan to strike. For your part, your Disciples share a total of five action points that are meant to be used to mitigate the effects of your foes’ attacks, or remove them from battle before they can make a move. The latter can be done in one of two ways. Each enemy you face has both health points and spiritual points. These function almost identically to the health bars and stress meters your opponents in Lord of the Dead possess.

You would do well to bear in mind that even once you manage to reduce any of your assailants to either zero health points or zero spiritual points, they won’t immediately perish or flee. You’ll have to inflict one more instance of damage to either their health bar or spiritual fortitude to finish them off. This reminds me of the “Death’s Door” system from Darkest Dungeon. When an enemy has no remaining HP or spiritual points, the game considers them Vulnerable.

Your minions can also be rendered Vulnerable in virtually the same manner. Should this fate befall one of your Disciples, you’ll be forced to spend a portion of your Diabolic Essence to basically resuscitate them and keep them as close to fighting fit as possible. Of course, you’ll want to avoid this to the best of your ability so that you can reserve your Diabolic Essence for the more delightfully devilish ways to spend it, if you’ll pardon the pun.

To conclude, I’m quite glad that I made it a point to spend some quality time with Rogue Lords’ demo during this past Steam Next Fest. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of everything the game will have to offer once it has been released. I can’t wait to see what else this title might have up its sleeve. In fact, I’m almost unhealthily excited to bring about Van Helsing’s final downfall. I hope this preview has piqued your interest in Rogue Lords as the demo did for me. If you’re curious, Rogue Lords is currently slated to release on Thursday, September 30th, 2021.