Empyreal Review – Mentally Harder

Expeditions have been the trend this year, but this one was prepared to come out for a while. Want to go all in alone inside a giant alien monolith in a mostly soul-like environment? Then yes, Empyreal is definitely the right fit for you. 

Released on May 8, 2025, this ambitious indie game has been on the radar of many gamers for a while now. Published by Secret Mode and developed by Silent Game, it is now available on the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S. If you’re adamant about joining this expedition, check out our official review for Empyreal, here at Gameffine. 

The Last Stand

To put it simply, you’re a mercenary with a little backstory that you can build by interacting with other people. The real centre of the action is a giant monolith with endless mysteries inside that no one has been able to conquer even after many repeated efforts. The best of men and soldiers have been lost to the effort, and now only a handful of them remain, sorting through salvage. 

Your expedition leader is Maurice, who was given an enormous responsibility by his grandfather to continue his work, but has almost given up hope. He is supported by a general, a quartermaster, an architect, a blacksmith, and an engineer who seems to know how to access different parts of the monolith. 

And that’s pretty much it. Afterwards, you’re just storming into the monolith in bits and parts, coming back often and reporting on your updates, all the while exploring other areas in the monolith through dropped access orbs from other enemies. 

The All-in-One Combat Talent

While you can start your character with a particular weapon and armour set that also influences the starting abilities, you are free to wield any weapon that you like throughout your journey. While the weapon option is itself limited to – A shield and sword, a heavy shield, a glide, and a canon, the skillset and abilities make up for the versatility in combat.

The combat itself is carried by the parrying system. If you’re not sending back damage or deflecting often, you’re easily overrun and eliminated from the stage. Most of the bosses are simply loaded with enormous chunks of health, so you will have to spend most of the time spamming attacks non-stop, or, to make it even worse, spend time defeating the allies and then finally attacking the main boss. With the limited move sets of the enemies, it’s also pretty boring to fight any boss for a longer period of time.

As for the feel of the combat itself, it feels like I am playing a beta version of a game. There’s no audio cue, there’s no visual highlight, it’s just simply an attack bar going full. Having an eye on all the attack bars at once is simply an irritating task. You are mostly overwhelmed by enemies and forced to use your abilities more than an actual combat loop. As for the abilities themselves, some of them are clean and grant you great benefits like a shield of legend, but the ultimates are just an awkward pan camera with a blast. 

The finishes are also limited to one stabbing animation, which mostly does not even fit with the build of the enemy.

The only good part about the game is the progression and building. There is enough depth to customise your equipment that specifically serves what you want stats-wise through collecting various spheres, but the looting is very generous. Coming back to the hub to replenish supplies with each individual NPC while having a fresh conversation is also quite fun and keeps it interesting. Unfortunately, the conversation itself is often boring and thrown out of the blue to capture.

Apart from combat, there is nothing else happening in the game. There’s no exploration, building or social hub where you can build structures of your own. Therefore, the game loop is limited to you finding new keys to access newer and harder parts of the area and coming back to improve your gear. While it’s fun for the first few hours, it gets progressively boring with enemy types that are simply more tanky instead of being challenging or interesting.

I really, really want Empyreal to be good, and it has the capability of being something better than what it already is, but even after four weeks since launch, I have given up hope. Unfortunately for Empyreal, it launches in a year where there are banger games after banger games, which are also indie, making it difficult for me to spend more time with it. I wish Empyreal did something unique or new so that I could play it more.

The Light Shines

Empyreal boasts of how well it looks. The game is surreal and definitely goes into becoming an extremely well-looking game in terms of scale. But it is the smaller things that are extremely bland to look at. 

The UI itself feels like an early 2000s sci-fi game that lacks basic stuff like a mini-map or a compass. There is no interaction or an ability wheel; my skills and consumables are docked literally on the number keys. The damage icons and parry/deflect texts are just lifeless to look at.

There are times I stand and stare at the sky, looking at how much depth the story has, but the narrative itself is so slow and boring that I am barely able to play more than an hour or two in a sitting. 

Real Talk

Empyreal is a decent ARPG, but really misses all its marks. It may have an interesting-looking world for an indie, but it clearly misses having a good story, engaging combat, or exploration. The game tries to be challenging, but only ends up being a bland fighting experience loop that just progresses to be even more frustrating. Overall, if you’re a die-hard ARPG fan, you can still find a good time, but there are many better titles to play this year.