Caves of Qud isn’t a new game by any means. Over 15 years of development, Freehold Games has built a community of passionate players over a long period of early access. But on Wednesday, Caves of Qud finally enjoyed a 1.0 launch, and is available for sale on Steam, Itch.io, and GOG.
It’s not easy to categorize Caves of Qud, because it covers so much ground — quite literally, since it’s generating an entire world full of ancient ruins, toxic jungles, scattered settlements, mutants, beasts, clones, sentient bears, and mysterious robots. It’s advertised as a “science fantasy roguelike epic” and a “deep simulation” that allows the players to do basically anything. Thanks to all the technology and magic of the setting, that can be anything from arguing with a sentient plant to becoming a spider and trapping your enemies in webs.
The 1.0 update adds a tutorial to teach the basics of the game, which was sorely needed, and adds a final quest to the main questline that initiates the end of the game. There are several new music tracks, as well as sound effects. Players can also earn 40 new achievements, find new items, and enjoy lots of minor bug fixes and quality of life changes.
The obvious comparison to draw here is to Dwarf Fortress, another visually simple but stunningly complex game that simulates every aspect of the environment. Much like Dwarf Fortress, a run-through of Caves of Qud is similarly spicy and unique. The game originally only had permadeath, but the Roleplay and Wander modes are much more casual and allow for exploration of this strange new world.
