Old school co-op action RPG Secrets of Grindea releases after a decade of early access

YouTube

After a long and I'm sure eventful development, cooperative four-player action RPG Secrets of Grindea has released after roughly a decade available to the public. A decided old school game, Grindea is intended as a tribute to and parody of the SNES era of gaming, but with the kind of length, depth, and variety only available on modern hardware.

The release includes some 300 different characters to meet, fully cooperative gameplay for four, customization to mix and match 31 skills, 30-some boss fights, and a pile of minigames: "design your own home, fish, craft items, tame pets, partake in mini-games, grow plants." There's also an arcade roguelite mode to play alongside the story mode.

First reaching an early access state in 2015, Secrets of Grindea spent nine years there—with demos prior. Now that it's released the developers plan to do a few rounds of bugfixes before tackling a New Game+ mode.

I checked, and PC Gamer actually reported on Grindea back in 2014, with writer Tom Sykes calling it "nostalgic, loot-obsessed and a lot of fun." That was actually playing the demo, which game out prior to the 2015 Early Access release. "There doesn't appear to be a release date set yet, there's no clue how long of a wait you'll be in for," he said. And uh, boy howdy, there sure was no clue about that.

"Thanks to everyone who have been with us on this crazy journey, and for all the encouragement and feedback we've been given to make this game what it is now - after a total of 13 years (!!) in development - and thanks and welcome to all the new player who will join in shaping it into what it will eventually become!," said Pixel Ferrets in a Steam post about the release, noting that though Early Access had only started in 2015, development had technically begun years prior.

You can learn more about and buy Secrets of Grindea directly from its developers on its official website, and you can find it on Humble, GOG, or Steam.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.