First time I saw the game I said: “another Diablo clone”. But as I ventured more and more into the game, that idea started diminishing. First of all, Depths of Peril is the work of Soldak, an independent low-budget developer. They managed to created a game that, if you just give it a shot, it will captivate you for its unique gameplay that many other BIG titles lack.

Depths of Peril is a role playing game combined with strategy elements that takes you in the city of Jorvik. You play against up to five computer factions (covenants) where the battle for supremacy is on.

In the beginning of the game you have to create a character, choosing from four classes: barbarian, mage, priest and rogue. Each has his own unique skills and attributes that can be developed to the maximum level of 100.

In the city of Jorvik there are several NPC that will give you quests, items or can be recruited in your covenant. There’s a vendor that sells fruits, water or elixirs. Torsten the Steward, Airik the Warmaster, Katla the Apothecary give quests. Gimna the Weaponsmith have all kind of weapons, essential items and quests. Varin the Armorsmith sells armor and survival items (fruits or potions) and also gives quests. We have Dorvia the Gambler that have different weapons and armor to gamble on and Dorvia the Beastmaster sells guards to put in your covenant.

The covenant has a Bookshelf where tomes that you find are placed in (about the Great War part 1,2 and 3; Myths and Legends). It has a shared stash (shared by all the four player’s characters) and a personal stash. If the hero is injured he can heal by staying near the Lifestone. And probably the most important is the Pedestal where, up to 4 relics that gives all the covenant members stats modifier (+ Attack damage, Life/Faith regeneration) and 4 guards to protect the covenant, can be assigned. The covenant gate teleports the player to different locations on the map, where waypoints have been activated.

During your journey, smashing trough swarms of monsters, items and copper pieces are dropped depending on the type and level of the monster. I have to admit that they are a little cheap on the money but there’s enough items to go and sell to a vendor. The items have 5 types of rarity: Normal, Common, Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare. These items are placed in the inventory, that contains 4 inventory bags, the armor slots (boots, leggings, belt, vest, helmet… the whole deal) and additional rings, jewelry and a necklace.

When venturing into combat, you always have a party member with you. You can display his info and equipment, see his skills, all the stats and what weapon or armor he uses. You can even “upgrade” him by giving better weapon or armor for a greater support in battles.

Quests can be found on almost any NPC in the city, quests that usually consists in killing X number of monsters, scout some forest, find a buried treasure, kill some more monsters… stuff like that, this quests may be timed or not.

You can also recruit new members for your covenant, but you must prove your worthiness first. They give you a certain task and if you are the first covenant to complete it and return to him within the given time (all the recruiting quests are timed) he will join your covenant.

On the bottom of the screen you have up to 10 slots where you can equip your weapon and different skills or spells. There are also buttons for the character screen, house layout (pedestal), skills screen, inventory, map, journal, quests and the mini-map.

The skills differ for all the character types except for the last two: Bonus and Basic. For example, the Barbarian has Offense where skills like Power Strike and Crushing Blow are found; Focus that contains Enrage or Weapons Mastery; and in Defense there’s all kind of passive defensive skills. If we take a Priest, Offense contains spells like Holy Fire or Holy Strike; Faith has Heal or Divine Intervention (adds Faints - mana); and Buffs with Shield of Fire, Hardiness (adds Vitality points) or use of Mail Armor.

Everything that happens in the City of Jorvik and the covenants are tracked and displayed through messages that appear over the skill/spell bar on the bottom of the screen. If a new member is available for recruit, who is the leading covenant, what quests other covenants completed or if some monsters formed a group some place, you’ll know.

The map isn’t that big but it’s filled with caves and lots of respawning monsters. If you feel like seeing your progress of the game to the point, the Journal displays the total kills, deaths, max damage dealt, quests solved, also stats for every player or best among your characters.

But what make the game unique is the relations with enemy factions. A grid with all the covenants and the diplomacy states, influence, power and taxes are shown. If you have guards protecting the covenant, they will need money, being some sort of mercs. Each faction has two perks that will give advantage from the rest. Some are Lucky (finds more and better items than others), Financial (get bonus to tax), some are Aggressive (tends to start wars and raids quicker). All of factions can trade influence, items, crystals, money, create trading routes or alliances. The relations area of the game is very well customized and developed for a RPG, it even has graphs for comparison the influence and power.

Depths of Peril is a great game with brilliant ideas but maybe too late. If you give it a little time you will see that it is, in fact, very challenging maybe yet addictive.

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Gameplay: 74

Although it introduces some cool features, Depths of Peril is still growing. No story is involved and the battles can be a bit tricky sometimes. But as you grow in levels, new items are found depending on the difficulty you’re playing. Choosing your allies well could determine the outcome of the game.

Graphics: 62

The game presents itself with lots of colored textures, lots of vegetation. Considering this is a low-budget game, I’d say that Soldak did a pretty good job. Thumb up for you guys : ) Even when it rains you can see the earth flashing from a lightning, which give more reality to the game.

Sound: 66

A nice music in the background, crickets, horses, dogs barking, you’d say that Jorvik is the city filled with life. Monsters have different sounds, and when it’s raining you can even hear the thunder.

Although the game isn’t demanding that much resources, even on a super computer with the latest video drivers installed, Depths of Peril freezes sometimes and has few frames per second.

Multiplayer: N/A

It’s a shame, it would’ve been fun.