Dustgrave: Prologue

About

Dustgrave: Prologue is a single player tactical role playing game with fantasy, medieval and historical themes. It was developed by Innervoid Interactive and was released on October 10, 2024. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

The mighty Dahlan Empire is falling, ravaged by a mysterious plague and internal unrest. While surviving powers and invading nations fight among themselves, adventurers and mercenaries venture inside this land full of opportunities. Create your character and embark on an epic journey, enjoying complete freedom in a true sandbox RPG experience. Everything you do affects the world and its people.…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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76%

Audience ScoreBased on 17 reviews

gameplay3 negative mentions

Deep build personalization and numerous possible interactions with NPCs, factions, and enemies provide a rich gameplay experience.
Combat system is satisfying and dynamic, similar to popular turn-based RPGs with stealth and tactical elements.
The game world feels alive and immersive, featuring faction prosperity changes and varied exploration opportunities.

Performance and optimization issues are significant, with severe FPS drops and occasional freezes even on high-end hardware.
User interface is unfriendly and needs major improvements including better tutorials, navigation, and keyboard shortcuts.
Numerous bugs and rough edges such as inconsistent disguise mechanics, unclear party member dynamics, and leftover combat visual effects reduce overall polish.

gameplay
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
37%
38%
The gameplay features intriguing mechanics like faction boosts from quests and unique options such as poisoning wells or manipulating NPC memories, but their practical applications remain unclear. The quest structure tends to be repetitive and formulaic, primarily involving simple fetch-and-fight tasks, which limits narrative depth and variety. Additionally, combat, party dynamics, and economic systems such as pricing and repair mechanics could benefit from better balancing and deeper integration to enhance strategic play.
- “Outside of that, there seem to be a lot of cool mechanics teased (e.g. poison a well, buy a scroll to implant a false memory in an NPC or erase a bad one); they seem interesting, but I have absolutely no idea how these would apply.”
- “At a glance the prices felt a little miscalibrated; armor was super cheap to buy, and in some cases it felt like repairing a weapon was more costly than just buying a new one of similar quality.”
- “Gameplay loop can get repetitive with exclusively programmatic quests - it definitely helps with the scale, but in the 2.5 hours I played, every quest boiled down to 'go to place, fight bad guys, collect reward.' The game markets itself as a sandbox, and maybe this is truer to the intention, but I found myself really wishing for longer quest chains or something that can sustain narratives that extend past single quests or abstract world events.”
- “Price tuning/repair mechanics - at a glance the prices felt a little miscalibrated, armor was super cheap to buy, and in some cases it felt like repairing a weapon was more costly than just buying a new one of similar quality.”
- “It also looks like there’s a mechanic that translates completed quests into boosts for different factions (I tracked down a ransacked caravan, and then the Pavanian Republic got a boost to its prosperity).”
story
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
14%
43%
The story in the game is largely driven by repetitive, programmatic quests that lack depth and extended narratives, making the gameplay loop feel monotonous. Quest mechanics impact faction prosperity, but quest chains and character development are minimal, with little incentive to engage with civilians or explore story-rich interactions. Overall, the story elements feel underdeveloped and could benefit from more meaningful, story-centric quests and NPC dialogue.
- “There’s a mechanic that translates completed quests into boosts for different factions, such as increasing the prosperity of the Pavanian Republic after tracking down a ransacked caravan.”
- “It would be great to have clear quest chains that explain when and why you’d use certain game features.”
- “It would be more believable if the characters were story-centric, rather than just found in town and signing up with no convincing necessary.”
- “Gameplay loop can get repetitive with exclusively programmatic quests. In the 2.5 hours I played, every quest boiled down to 'go to place, fight bad guys, collect reward.' The game markets itself as a sandbox, but I found myself wishing for longer quest chains or narratives that extend past single quests or abstract world events.”
- “It’d be a bit more believable if these were story-centric characters, but most you just find in town and sign up for you with no convincing necessary.”
- “It’d be really cool to either incorporate talking to civilians via quests (e.g., 'survey the population for clues'), or if there was a chance of discovering information in chats (some random probability of a map to a dungeon or loot cache).”
graphics
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
67%
The game's cartoon-style top-down graphics are decent but unremarkable, with some minor visual bugs like persistent buff effects remaining after battles. While not impressive, the graphics adequately support the enjoyable battle system and skills.
- “The game is fun, the battle system and skills are interesting, and the graphics are fine enough.”
- “Top down turn-based RPG with cartoon graphics; not exactly impressive but decent.”
- “Top-down turn-based RPG with cartoon graphics; not exactly impressive but decent. Had some bugs, but no game-breaking ones.”
- “Buff visuals remain after fights - I was wandering around and could not figure out why my party member’s head was glowing red, until I realized that this was the visual for the attack boost skill.”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is currently very poorly optimized, resulting in significantly subpar performance, which users find disappointing but somewhat expected in an early access title.
- “It's a highly unoptimized mess - perhaps to be expected in early access - but it absolutely performs like garbage at this present moment.”
- “Game is not optimized.”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game experiences occasional minor bugs that may require reloading certain areas, but overall remains stable without major crashes or game-breaking issues.