Iratus: Lord of the Dead, an RPG inspired by Darkest Dungeon, is heading to Kickstarter next month

Iratus: Lord of the Dead is a roguelike inspired by Darkest Dungeon, the party-based dungeon crawler from 2016, and I can think of worse games to emulate. Darkest Dungeon's blend of party management and turn-based combat was majestic, and Iratus aims to do the same, except that instead of looking after a group of adventurers you're cobbling together an army of undead from the body parts of vanquished foes. 

It's a debut game for Russian developer Unfrozen Studios, which is partly formed by developers that worked on the Disciples franchise. You control Iratus, a necromancer hell-bent on world domination, who uses an army of animated corpses to do his bidding. You'll be commanding your army in turn-based battles in which you target enemies' weak spots, and then at the end of the fight you'll harvest their bodies so you can create more monsters in your underground lair.

The game is largely complete, but the team plan to launch a Kickstarter at the start of next month. They're searching for $10,000 so they can "polish it up and perhaps add some extra content", they said in a Steam post.

It's due out in October. If it's anything like Darkest Dungeon—and from the screenshot below, it at least looks the part—then this could be one to watch.

Samuel Horti

Samuel Horti is a long-time freelance writer for PC Gamer based in the UK, who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play.