Dread Delusion markets itself as similar to Morrowind, but it feels much closer to a King’s Field game with its deliberate first-person view and slow, weighty combat. In both games, melee feels intentional and a bit clumsy, with wide, slow sword swings that require careful timing, positioning, and stamina-style management instead of fast-paced action. Your attacks aren’t decided by a dice roll, and the pace is intentionally slow, giving it an almost dream-like feel.
Atmospherically, Dread Delusion captures King’s Field‘s brand of melancholy, dread, and quiet wonder. The low-poly graphics in Dread Delusion deliberately evoke the haunting, uncanniness of the PS1 era, while its esoteric fantasy setting feels like kin to the fog-shrouded islands of King’s Field. The only part that reminded me of Morrowind was the open-ended story and branching gameplay.
Dread Delusion
Developer: Lovely Hellplace
Publisher: Dread XP
Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed)
Release Date: March 17, 2026
Price: $22.79
An ancient advanced civilization called the Embarians pushed too far with their hubris, tearing the planet’s surface apart and forcing survivors onto floating skyrealms and Oneiric Isles drifting in a blood-red sky. The surface below remains a cursed wasteland plagued by undead and ruin.
It’s kind of like Baroque, but with a brutal God War that erupted between humanity and the cruel gods who once ruled. A secular, science-revering regime has banned all forms of god worship, enforcing its authority through an inquisition. The Union, a powerful organization, has extended its reach to the far-off haven for outlaws, heretics, and the fading remnants of the divine.
The Union dispatches an errand boy, you, the player, on a suicide mission to track down a rogue high-ranking Union officer who has become a notorious sky pirate. You begin as a nameless prisoner, a convicted criminal held by the Inquisition, and after you allocate your stats and specialty, you’re set loose in a surrealist dying fantasy world.
Players face the choice between clinging to the Union’s grim status quo or chasing the dangerous, far-fetched dream of uniting with or driving out divine forces to reshape reality. The story delves into themes of pride, the false promise of progress, and whether humanity’s constant interference can ever truly mend a fractured world.
The first thing anyone will notice about Dread Delusion is its low-poly graphics and chunky textures. The visuals create a fascinating mixture of melancholy and quiet wonder, all laced with dark humor, philosophical cynicism, and a subtle touch of cozy nostalgia.
The world feels both oppressive and dreamlike; a fractured reality where ancient gods are nearly wiped out, humanity survives on floating islands beneath a constant lurid blood-red sky.
Exploration brings a deep sense of solitude and unease. Relatively peaceful moments spent roaming vast, alien landscapes can abruptly turn into ominous tension, yet it never crosses into outright horror.
There is definitely some horrific imagery, like strewn bloody corpses or uncanny, otherworldly monsters, but the abstracted visuals make everything feel more impressionistic rather than realistic.
Some of the graphics are too simple compared to the kinds of games Dread Delusion is homaging. Some props and items scattered around are hilariously simple, while others are more elaborate, creating an incongruous impression. Some of the color choices are wildly psychedelic, and the structures look like a blend of industrial Soviet-era machinery and design sensibilities.
Gameplay unfolds as a streamlined yet flexible RPG system. Character creation begins with a short background questionnaire that grants starting bonuses to one of four core attributes: might, guile, wisdom, and persona. You won’t level up by earning XP; instead, players need to gather floating blue skull fragments found throughout the world or obtained by completing quests or exploring the floating islands.
Every three glimmers form a full Delusion, which you spend to raise an attribute by one point, incrementally improving its linked skills. This encourages thorough exploration over grinding, as combat rarely provides direct rewards. As a result, combat became just a means to an end, and most of the time, I found the best strategy was simply to avoid enemies altogether since it wasn’t worth the trouble to fight them.
You can handle basic melee weapons with charged strikes and parries, cast spells from a hovering tome, craft potions through alchemy, and enhance gear via smithing. I specialized in guile and outpaced my opponents with superior stamina. Though the mechanics are fairly light and the combat simple, the focus on player choice, skill checks, and branching narratives offers a real sense of freedom in the strange, dreamlike skyrealms.
If you end up in a fight, combat is surprisingly easy. Enemies are too limited to pose much of a threat if you play cautiously, and exploring will reward you with plenty of healing items if you take the time to search. The PC version got an update with a harder mode, and this Switch 2 port includes it since the main game was considered too easy. The specialty you choose at the start is best used for exploration and progression over sword and board or throwing fireballs.
The default mode could use more challenge. With hunger and stamina mechanics in place, you’d expect the gameplay to feel more tense, but it rarely does since it’s easy to avoid combat altogether. Dread Delusion’s best moments come from exploring and getting lost in its decrepit and dreamy world, which intriguingly draws inspiration from Russia’s history.
Level design has a multi-path approach to challenges: most quests and obstacles offer alternatives to direct combat, such as lockpicking doors, using lore skill-checks to decipher magical puzzles or secrets, charming NPCs for new dialogue options or alliances, or simply smashing through barriers with good old-fashioned violence. The environments are thoughtfully designed, featuring clever shortcuts, looping paths, and layers of verticality.
Surprisingly, the Nintendo Switch 2 port does not include any gyro-aim or mouse mode controls. It would have been a perfect fit for this kind of game, yet it’s absent. A huge and disappointing missed opportunity.
The unique story, immersive setting, and creative designs that complement the lo-fi graphics are what make Dread Delusion so cool. It may not be much of a challenge, but it’s a righteous and immersive game all the same.
Dread Delusion was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided by Dread XP. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Dread Delusion is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
