Hunt witches and slay undead as a redemption-seeking sinner in Witchfire, the dark fantasy shooter that just released on Steam through Early Access.

Taking inspiration from the Souls series, Witchfire is a bleak first-person shooter, fully committed to its roguelike and extraction gameplay while delivering brutally difficult combat encounters and solid gunplay.

So, is this a mishmash of genres or an actual cohesive experience? Is it too early into development to jump in? Is it difficult in a fair way? Find out the answer to these questions and more in our full preview for Witchfire.

Witchfire is a dark fantasy shooter developed by some of the team behind Painkiller and Bulletstorm as part of their new studio, The Astronauts. The game has been out in Early Access through the Epic Games store for a little over a year now and has recently landed on Steam, with an estimated release date of late 2025.

The game puts players in the shoes of the Preyer, a sinner turned undead assassin for the purpose of eradicating the Witch of the Black Sea and her undead forces. To do this, players will employ a large arsenal of magical weapons and spells, as well as occult knowledge to turn the supernatural against itself.

Things will not be so easy, however, as the witch’s influence is felt throughout the land in the form of increasingly terrifying creatures, and the deeper your knowledge of the supernatural is, the harder things will become.

At the moment, Witchfire contains three different maps, all featuring different enemies and increased difficulty depending on how affected they are by the witch’s presence. Your goal on every one of these maps is to try and gain a foothold by unlocking new portals, finding new weapons, and defeating notorious enemies to rid the lands of powerful undead creatures.

Despite having complex and vertical open-world stages, Witchfire is really easy to navigate, thanks to its detailed map and the abundance of roads and landmarks that are used to guide the player. Witchfire does a great job at making its gorgeous and hyper-detailed environments actually simple to traverse, which is something a lot of open-world games struggle with.

What isn’t so simple about Witchfire is the actual gameplay, which will continuously break you down as you try to fight back. It’s no exaggeration to say that Witchfire might be one of the toughest souls-likes out there, and honestly, its brutal and punishing combat encounters end up becoming its most iconic feature.

Witchfire‘s combat manages to adapt the souls-like formula into a first-person shooter really well, as enemies relentlessly attack you from all sides to test your reflexes. Enemies come in large packs, don’t telegraph their attacks for too long, and will absolutely attack you from off-screen, making for a brutal experience.

The game fully commits to being a souls-like with its stamina system, which means that a lot of the time enemy encounters will whittle you down little by little until you can’t dodge anymore. The game’s enemies are real menaces, and even the most basic undead can be a threat in larger encounters.

As you put some time into Witchfire, you’ll be able to eventually develop a sixth sense for these encounters, but until then you will be forced to play every fight like it’s your last, and it just might be. There’s no shame in picking up some crowd control spells, as the game can often become overwhelming, especially during its boss fights.

Some of the game’s enemies are only found on the maps with higher witch influence, so you aren’t necessarily thrown into the deep end immediately. There are easier maps that allow you to unlock weapons and become familiar with the game’s controls before having to tackle its harder challenges, which is much appreciated.

Witchfire strikes a good balance between being a souls-like and extraction shooter, as you have to find portals scattered throughout the islands to leave with your rewards. In true souls-like fashion, you can attempt to save your lost currency after dying by doing a corpse run, but being defeated while trying to recover it destroys your loot for good.

Every one of the game’s maps is filled to the brim with secrets, unlockables, and puzzles, which reward you with more gear or upgrade materials. Witchfire‘s puzzles are just the right amount of cryptic- enough to make them mysterious and fun to solve, but not enough to be frustrating and halt your gameplay for too long.

When it comes to its performance, Witchfire pays for its gorgeous art style and detailed environments with occasional frame drops and crashes. It’s especially annoying for a game this difficult to crash while you are in the middle of a heated battle, and it can really kill your momentum.

The game definitely used to crash a lot more when we first tried out the Epic Games Store build, so it’s nice to know that the developers have been hard at work to fix these issues. Witchfire feels overall much more stable after its Steam release, thanks to a recent patch at the end of September that addressed its crashes.

The developers have also been very transparent about how the game’s difficulty works and are constantly taking the community’s suggestions into account, so it’s safe to say that this is an Early Access game with a solid future. Witchfire is already a very high-quality title, and the work that is being put into it shows promise.

Overall, Witchfire is a fantastic adaptation of the souls-like formula into a first-person shooter and manages to deliver a soul-crushing experience to players looking for a challenge. The game also has a good chunk of quality-of-life systems to make the experience difficult but not necessarily masochistic for those who want a more reasonable time.

Witchfire looks stunning and nails its dark fantasy aesthetic, feeling very similar to the decrepit, fading world we find in Dark Souls 3. It’s undeniable that a good chunk of Witchfire‘s enemy designs and environments wouldn’t be out of place in a FromSoftware title, which is the highest praise that can be given to a fantasy RPG.

Witchfire is one of those early access titles that already feel like a finished game, and its 2024-2025 roadmap shows a lot of promise. There’s no doubt in my mind that Witchfire is one of the best souls-likes currently available, as it fundamentally understands the formula well enough to completely switch genres and still thrive.

Witchfire is available on Microsoft Windows (through Steam’s Early Access). The game is set to release at some point in late 2025.