GamesStrategyThe creators of Blasphemous are making a real-time tactics game about escaping from a haunted Spanish monasteryWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

GamesStrategyThe creators of Blasphemous are making a real-time tactics game about escaping from a haunted Spanish monasteryWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

The Stone of Madness - Story Trailer | Gamescom 2024 - YouTubeWatch On

The Stone of Madness - Story Trailer | Gamescom 2024 - YouTube

The Stone of Madness - Story Trailer | Gamescom 2024 - YouTube

The Stone of Madness - Story Trailer | Gamescom 2024 - YouTube

Blasphemouscreator The Game Kitchen revealed a brand new title at last night’s Future Game Show, and while it’s a very different beast from the studio’s challenging 2D soulslikes, it does carry over the team’s fascination with Catholic imagery and doctrine. The Stone of Madness is a real-time tactics game in the vein ofShadow TacticsandDesperados 3, but set in a haunted 18th Century Jesuit monastery which you must escape from before your ragtag team of talented prisoners all go insane.

The Stone of Madness puts players in control of five different characters, all of whom are trapped in said monastery located deep in the Pyrenees. As with other real-time tactics games, each character has a different set of skills that, according to the game’sSteam page, let them “cast spells, assassinate targets, distract enemies” among other things. You’ll be able to swap between characters at will to evade the monastery’s guards, and solve puzzles.

Yet while mechanically similar to games like Shadow Tactics, it sounds like the Stone of Madness will be structurally quite different from Mimimi’s games. The monastery will be a single, open space that you’ll gradually peel back the layers of. Conditions within the monastery also change depending on the time of day. During daytime, you’ll be able to explore semi-freely, although there will be restricted areas where guards will punish you if you’re caught snooping. At night, however, things take a supernatural turn, with ghosts as well as guards roaming the monastery’s cloistered hallways. This makes sneaking around at night much more dangerous, although with that apparently comes the potential for greater rewards.

(Image credit: The Game Kitchen)

The Stone of Madness

There’s no hard release date for The Stone of Madness yet, but Steam lists it as coming out in 2025. Between this and the upcomingCommandos: Origins, I’m glad the real-time-tactics genre is continuing to sneak new titles onto my PC despite thesad closureof Mimimi Games last year.

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