The Lonesome Guild is a forthcoming single-player action RPG from Tiny Bull Studios that explores an adorable, tight-knit group of anthropomorphic friends and their journey across a vast land. Featuring a world consumed by despair and loneliness, its opening hours that we got hands-on with were quite promising, making for another worthy adventure under DON’T NOD‘s publishing repertoire.
A ghost awakens in a strange place. They don’t remember who they were or how they came to be. Teaming up with a band of adventurers, you’re striving to help heal the world and restore your memories while you’re at it. Our hands-on was the opening hours of the game and saw the ghost linking up with three other party members: a tinkerer rabbit/bat hybrid called Davinci, a pragmatic and mysterious fox called, well, Mr Fox, and a punk, denim jacket-wearing capybara called Ran Tran Trum. Though the latter of the bunch doesn’t join until later, facing his own trials, I’m already endeared by the main cast, even with three still to find in the full game.
The Lonesome Guild is an isometric action combat game that is an interesting mesh of dungeon crawler and Zelda-like. Combat only occurs in pre-determined and scripted arenas where all exits are locked off, and the only way through is to take down everything in your way. Playing one character at a time, you cycle through the party quite a bit in combat, taking advantage of all their individual strengths to come out on top. Though both Mr Fox and Davinci work in close-quarters combat, their ultimate ability is what sets them apart, with Mr Fox serving ranged combat in a long bow and arrow shot while Davinci uses an AoE devastating hammer slam.
Movement feels akin to other dungeon crawlers like Diablo; you’re threading attacks through openings that you find through dodging and rolling through enemy attacks. You’re kept on your toes, as not every attack coming your way is as immediately readable and evident as the other bright, glowing red AoEs coming your way. Though the ghost doesn’t have any exact combat moves in fights, they play a crucial part. You’re encouraged to swap between characters in battle regularly, as doing so when the game requests will see the ghost buff said character making their attack and defence stronger for a limited time.
All while this is happening, you’re working towards filling up meters to be able to pull off each character’s individual ultimate attacks and, most devastating of all, a group attack that almost entirely deletes boss health bars. Though I don’t exactly have a firm grasp yet on how combat synergy works, as I ended the preview build early in everyone’s combat trees, I at least do not doubt that The Lonesome Guild does what all the best isometric action combat games do: offer a firm challenge where you’re spinning many a plate mid-battle.
The Lonesome Guild’s other core crux is the exploration and RPG aspects. You’re growing bonds between each character, and this is the core means of unlocking more branches in skill trees. Every so often, you’ll stumble upon a spot where you can set up camp and engage in fireside chats with your party. Make the right choice in dialogue, and you’re boosting relationship points with said characters. Though you can’t romance your peers (it’d be a bit jarring with the whole cozy, Redwall-esque effect they’re going for with the world), I do really feel endeared by the fact that the bonds play a big part in you growing stronger. It ties in well to the narrative’s themes of overcoming loneliness with your friends. Kingdom Hearts said it best when they said, “My friends are my power.”
The ‘Zelda of it all’ comes in the puzzles and gorgeous, vibrant overworld you’re exploring that’s already full of character in the first five biomes I’ve witnessed. My adventure thus far took me across a forest with dense greenery, a dilapidated ruin area with dying Autumn leaves, a bustling, cozy lakeside town and an industrial factory home to groups of robots. You’re really getting that true sense of adventure with the types of places you’re seeing, highlighted by vivid colours, friendly individuals and quirky foes. In the town region in particular, you’re being issued the most sidequests where you’re helping a merchant deal with a robot infestation problem in his shop, or helping another local pen a poem to the one they love. All the characters are different breeds of animals, aiding in building up the world.
While you’re exploring these environments, puzzles are thrown your way that have you regularly swapping between party members so one can hold one lever while another passes through a gate to stand on a given pressure plate, and so on. Deceptively simple on the surface, but brain-wrinkling before long, as these areas begin to get more labyrinthian. They do other big environmental puzzle swings too; one sequence in castle ruins tasked me with working out the sequence a series of statues should appear as, with an issued riddle and murals on the walls being my main clue. Here, I learned of the Ghost’s crucial aid in puzzles, being unable to surface echoes of objects and things of interest from the past to help provide context and resolutions to the enigma ahead of me.
The Lonesome Guild is an incredibly charming and endearing action-adventure RPG thus far. I’d be lying if I didn’t have small concerns: the lack of a map to view at all times (only select locations let you pull up a map to look at) and whether or not the game will justify the 20-30 hour length it’s said to be are my big pauses so far.
Regardless, it’s an enchanting and colourful game that you’d best keep your eye on. The Lonesome Guild arrives on October 23rd for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
