Before:

Witchfire is a single-player, first-person shooter from the creative leads behind Painkiller and Bulletstorm. A unique blend of soulslike, extraction, and roguelite gameplay, Witchfire offers a challenging and satisfying experience with multiple paths to victory.

After:

Witchfire is a single-player RPG shooter from the creative minds behind Painkiller and Bulletstorm. Embark on perilous expeditions, vanquishing foes to enhance your powers and arsenal. Scavenge valuable resources and retreat to your sanctuary, or push your luck by confronting Familiars— the powerful guardians of the witch.

The key change here is the removal of “a unique blend of soulslike, extraction, and roguelite gameplay.” Why? Is this no longer true?

It is true—that’s how Witchfire began. Soulslike because of its general vibe, dark fantasy theme, and certain design philosophies. Extraction because you’re stealing from the witch, and she won’t let you go easily. Roguelite due to the dynamic world and Arcana, our system of in-run power-ups.

However, these terms might also give the wrong impression of what Witchfire truly is. Soulslike fans may expect a more oneiric world with less action. Extraction fans might expect a more hardcore reset of progress. Roguelite fans could anticipate procedurally generated worlds and random loadouts.

In theory, we’re not saying the game is tied to any specific genre; we just have elements of these genres. But I believe the game has evolved enough for these elements to transform into something that’s harder to define, making genre labels less fitting.

Let’s dive deeper into the whats and whys.

Soulslike

Does Witchfire have soulslike elements? It does indeed! But will people really understand what that means specifically in a first-person shooter?

I don’t think so. Even in genres easier to define, like third-person hack-and-slash, people can’t agree. I’m not kidding—check any “What is a soulslike?” thread on Reddit and you’ll get twenty different answers. Here’s one example, and here’s another.

The subgenre is so hard to define that even Wikipedia resorts to a broad-strokes definition: “a subgenre of action role-playing games known for high difficulty level and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting.” Many players would probably argue that definition doesn’t cover everything. Heck, we can’t even agree on whether it’s spelled soulslike, souls-like, or Souls-like.

Most gamers, however, feel what it means for a game to be soulslike. We expect hard difficulty, learning through dying, respawning enemies, and dystopian worlds. But each player has their own interpretation of details, so when we say Witchfire has soulslike elements… it becomes a meaningless word salad. We’d rather describe the game in ways that help players imagine how it plays. So, we dropped the term.

But for what it’s worth, what are the soulslike elements in Witchfire? Superficially, it’s things like:

• When you die, you lose the witchfire you gathered during an expedition, but you can retrieve it on your next run.
• Enemies respawn after you die or return to your hideout, though they don’t respawn mid-expedition.
• There are light “commit to action” mechanics, like reloading—if you dash or run, the reload gets canceled, making reload timing part of your combat strategy.

However, that’s not really what we internally mean by “soulslike.” There are deeper elements that align with our interpretation.

One key element in soulslikes is offering multiple paths to victory. I’ve managed to finish every FromSoft game despite not being “gud” at them.

These games present skill check gates, but you don’t need to master them. FromSoft titles give you four key paths:

1. Skill: “Git gud”—learn and master the core combat.
2. Smarts: Use game mechanics and builds wisely. For example, some Elden Ring builds can one-shot bosses. Why fight when no fight do job?
3. Grind: Overlevel. Yes, even in Sekiro.
4. Cheese: Exploit AI, environment, and glitches. Everything’s fair as long as you don’t use external tools.

The second major element is the “greed is bad” mantra. If you’ve ever rushed a boss when its HP is low and been punished for your recklessness, you know what I mean.

But do “multiple paths to victory” and “greed punished” immediately scream soulslike? Probably not. And yet these two elements are exactly what we mean when we think of soulslikes. This is what excites us about the genre, and how we see the soulslike part of Witchfire soul. But we do not think it comes through when we say our game has “soulslike elements” and just leave it at that.

Extraction

Most extraction games are PvP and known for their hardcore, punishing mechanics. When we think extraction, we draw inspiration from those games, but we also look at iconic moments in single-player titles.

Take Modern Warfare’s “All Ghillied Up” mission, for example. At the end, there’s an extraction sequence where you fend off waves of enemies while waiting for rescue.

Or, in Bioshock 2, extracting ADAM attracts enemies, forcing you to set up traps before starting the extraction.

These are memorable extraction sequences, but when you say your game has extraction gameplay, people think of something closer to Escape from Tarkov—punishing and merciless. Witchfire’s extraction mechanics are more of a “spice” than the main meal, so we decided to remove the term.

That said, we do plan to expand on the extraction elements. You’re stealing witchfire from the witch, after all—she won’t take kindly to that. Escaping should become a bit more intense, adding sweetness to the spoils of your expedition.

Roguelite

This is the big one, because Witchfire has plenty of roguelite elements. But guess what?

To be clear, this is a joke. But FromSoft games do share many roguelite elements—respawning enemies, learning by death, loss of progress, and so on. But you’ll never see FromSoft use the word roguelite to describe any element of their games. Why? Because the term carries expectations that don’t necessarily apply.

I believe we’ve reached the similar point with Witchfire. Our designs and early access feedback have evolved the game into something unique, which is why we now describe it in its own terms. As I said in a recent interview:

“I call it ‘quantum Witchfire’ because, on one hand, it’s still the same game we always wanted to make, but on the other, it’s evolved significantly. We’ve shifted from being a roguelite shooter towards becoming an RPG shooter. We now have a clear vision of how the final version of Witchfire will look.”

Let me give you an example. Usually, procedural generation is a must for a roguelite. But we decided not to procedurally generate enemies every time you die. Instead, enemy setups stay the same until you level up, allowing players to master each region before things change.

Another example is the addition of entirely scripted, repeatable sections to the game. Take Witch Vaults, for instance—these are challenging hidden levels that remain unchanged with each playthrough. This design choice offers players an opportunity to showcase mastery and these segments are good refreshers, but it’s all a direct contrast to the ever-changing, unpredictable nature of a traditional roguelite experience.

These are just one of the twists we’ve made. As you can see, I hope, Witchfire is aiming to be its own game, and adding “roguelite elements” to the description just does not really explain anything at all.

In Conclusion

We realized that describing Witchfire as a “unique blend of souls-like, extraction, and roguelite gameplay” was not only vague but potentially misleading. It could deter players who would enjoy the game once they understood its true nature, or disappoint those expecting more rigid adherence to genre fundamentals.

Also, I think this description is just too vague for its own good. Players deserve something more precise in that one paragraph describing the game. Imagine if I told you a movie is coming out, and it’s a mix of drama and sci-fi, with bits of surrealism. Does that really tell us much? I just described both Inception and Everything Everywhere All at Once—yet they’re very different films.

All of us in the studio are fans of soulslikes, many of us love roguelites, and Karol is the fearless evangelist of Tarkov. All of that—and more, like the research system from 1993’s Syndicate—influences our designs. After years of development, Witchfire has transformed, transmuted, and transcended into something that’s both a love letter to the genres we adore and its own idiosyncratic entity.

We’ve now settled on “RPG shooter.” The shooter part is obvious, and the RPG elements, like build crafting and lore, grow stronger with each update. Coming soon: more story elements and a deeper focus on role-playing. Stay tuned for details.

Excelsior!

Question Thing of the Week

Usually, we do a simple Q&A in this extra segment, but this time, we’re just happy to share the very first cosplay of Witchfire <3

You think the pope would hire me?? @TheAstroCrew pic.twitter.com/EHH2p8D97X

— SpicyKiwi (Vtuber) (@SpicyKiwi__) September 3, 2024