First Impressions: Ancient Shadows Awakening (Playtest) (PC)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Ancient Shadows Awakening Playtest through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played, and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

Ancient Shadows Awakening (Playtest)
Release Date: 2026
Systems: Windows
Publisher: Petr Najman
Developer: Petr Najman
Time Spent: 2 Hours 20 Minutes
Gameplay  Videos on YouTube

Ancient Shadows Awakening is a solo first-person dungeon crawl in the vein of 30-year-old dungeon crawls like 1989's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar and 1991's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder.  You play as Erlan as you set off on a quest to find a way to heal your friend, the ailing blacksmith Armin.  While out searching for a cure, Erlan stumbles upon a sealed door to an underground cavern and, weaponless, decides to head down the stairs to the dungeon.  The story itself is rather flimsy and not really captivating, but motivations aside, Ancient Shadows Awakening attempts to recreate the feeling of the Westwood CRPG dungeon crawlers from the late 80s and early 90s for a modern audience.

While thematically similar to games like Eye of the Beholder, Ancient Shadows Awakening is primarily different as you play as a single character and not an adventuring party.  Erlan, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a class either, in the traditional TTRPG sense, and as you rise in levels by killing enemies throughout the dungeon.  As mentioned previously, you're ill-equippd for your quest as you don't have any weapons and all of the ragity bits of armor you find, provide more armor than the simiple clothes you start the game with.  You're able to raise and customize Erlan's stats to be the type of character and playstyle you tend to favor, although there is not a lot in the way of options outside of maximum health, mana, and a handful of stats that seem to have been imported from the survival genre.

That's right, Ancient Shadows Awakening has integrated several mechanics reminiscent of survival games.  You have a hydration meter that slowly depletes over time, replenishable by drinking water out of fonts, eating food, or from bottles of water.  Taking damage because your health or hydration is at zero as you scour the dungeon for anything else to eat isn't fun.  There is a lantern oil mechanic that slowly drains every time you have your lantern out.  You have a calorie meter that slowly drains over time and can be replenished by eating food.  You have a stamina meter that drains every time you sprint, although it thankfully refills whenever you're not sprinting, so you don't have to constantly sprint and stand still waiting to sprint again.  You also have limited space in your inventory and a limited number of saves per location mechanic (you can only save in a location up to three times before your health is drained each time you save).

Because it's the mid-2020s, there's also a crafting mechanic that allows you to create items from a predetermined list, such as whetstones to repair the durability of your weapons, because of course there's a durability mechanic here too.  There's also soup to replenish health and hydration, but only some types of food, as I've found that eating a cooked steak will actually drain your hydration a few points.  There's alchemical crafting for potions too, but only for recipes that you know, as you're not allowed to mix random ingredients willy-nilly.  There's also some kind of campfire mechanic, but I have yet to figure out how to use it effectively beyond boiling a murky potion into clean water.  I'm sure it has something to do with the bowl or raw soup I crafted.  Maybe I just need an additional bowl to put the bowl of raw soup into before I put it over the fire?

Ancient Shadows Awakening seems purposefully vague on a lot of fronts, in the way a game won't hold your hand, explaining all of the mechanics up front.  I kind of appreciate this figure-out-as-you-go-along, but the calorie and hydration mechanic, along with the limited lantern oil, feels like a lot to manage during your first playthrough.  Even with the multiple save slots, it feels like I could very easily save my way into a corner where Erlan is low on health, low on calories, low on hydration, low on oil, and the last time I saved was 45 minutes ago after traversing another large room of spike and flame traps; and I'm still confused how/why I'm ocassionally getting damage going through that room even when I don't step on spike plates.

I think if this were the final version of the game, I would be worried about the longevity of Ancient Shadows Awakening, or the general frustration of the mechanics being too punishing, even on normal difficulty. Thankfully, this is just a playtest, so there's room to make adjustments and improvements.  Ancient Shadows Awakening does have a lot of good ideas, but it seems like there are just too many irons in the proverbial fire, without a really clear view of what the game is trying to be.  Crafting.  Survival.  Dungeon Crawl. Inventory Management.  Because right now, with so many facets, it's hard for any one mechanic to feel like it stands out and is supposed to be the focal point of the game.  I can't quite tell what the game is trying to excel at, and sadly, that's to the detriment of the game as a whole.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Shattered Hope Became My Guide