Raw Fury 10th Anniversary Preview — Regions of Ruin: Runegate

If you’ve read any of my long-winded articles, you know I love fantasy Dwarves to the point where a game needs to offer little else in order to capture my interest. As such, I was a bit surprised I had never run into Regions of Ruin before, as it seems to be all about the stalwart race doing what they do best: persevering. Luckily, this hole in my gaming experience was filled on our excursion to Raw Fury’s office in Stockholm, Sweden, wherein we were treated to a demo of Regions of Ruin: Runegate.

As many tales of Dwarves, the game sets off with our bearded heroes in a bit of a bother. Having located a lovely mountain to live in, the process of setting down roots is quickly interrupted by an attacking horde of the hated Green Skins.

Forced to retreat and suffering losses, our custom protagonist and friends are lucky enough to find an ancient portal, a Runegate, that teleports them out of danger and leads them to an archaic Dwarven ruin. Being the stalwart folk they are, your clan decide to set up a base of operations in said ruins, tasking you with using the titular gate to enter the many realms of the world in search of resources, allies, and old knowledge to improve your new home.

These halls act as your central hub area and contain multiple sections where you can build structures, such as storehouses or merchant stalls, while also housing your allies and possible party members. Additionally, you can interact with your clanmates and other friends you’ve recruited during your travels, learning more about them and receiving quests to complete.

The exploration and resource gathering of Runegate is interesting, as it has multiple levels. When exiting a portal, you have a small 2D area to survey and a map with only your current location filled in. To explore, you need to actually select individual areas of the map to unveil, hopefully revealing points of interest to scout. Reconnoitring is not free, however, as Dvarwes are a hungry bunch: the further you travel from your central location, the more food you’ll need to make the journey feasible.

Once an area is revealed, discovered points of interest are added to the map, and thankfully, moving to any known location is free, allowing you to travel and revisit places without fear! The areas themselves are 2D maps, often with some challenges to face, NPCs to meet, or puzzles to solve, and contain both resources and loot to collect. Though you’ll visit quite a few locations following along questlines, some areas will remain a mystery unless you go there yourself.

In terms of combat, the game is on the simpler side: you can attack with your current weapon, block if you have a shield, and dodge. You have slots for four different weapon categories: small blades, ranged options, one-handed blades paired with a shield, and two-handed weapons. Each type of armament has its pros and cons, such as the bigger weapons being slow and unwieldy, but packing a punch, while the ranged options being powerful but limited by ammo.

In addition to your armoury of weapons, your diligent Dwarf also has a Skill Tree which offers some options to change up how you approach the different encounters. The Tree in the build we played had four distinct branches, with focus on Combat, Defence, Ranged, and “Rogueish” respectively. If you’re as indecisive as me, you’ll be happy to hear the home base will offer a respect option in the final product.

During our 45-minute sneak peek, my colleague and I raided three goblin camps, built a warehouse, repaired a bridge, bemoaned the exploits of our recruited friend who liked to catch arrows with his body, and found a wolf we could not only pet but also recruit into our party! Regions of Ruin: Runegate has the makings of a great game, with the central loop of exploration and resource management meshing well with the general combat and questing. It’s still early days, but, honestly, they had me at female Dwarves with beards.