Duil Review

Duil is a dark action platformer with RPG elements, as you fight through a cursed world as a lost soul trapped between dimensions. You will learn magic, collect relics, and shape your destiny in this creepy adventure with multiple endings. It looks a lot like another metroidvania you may have played, Dead Cells, but it has some new, innovative gameplay designs of its own. Developed and published by JL Studio, it is a one-person development project, with the creator working alongside a musician for the soundtrack.

We see a body hanging from two pieces of wood at the top of a building, suspended by a chain. It is storming, and he is struck by lightning, falling to the ground below. We learn that Duil is the only survivor of his family’s slaughter. Upon landing, he grabs a fabric banner from the wall to use as a cloak as he explores the prison of Targat, which has been overrun by undead creatures led by Vzraville.

A text box pops up addressing you as Duil, telling you that you are free and must now go through a short training session. You will need to figure out how to escape this dark labyrinth by making decisions that affect your character’s build and determine which of the multiple endings you will obtain.

Soon after you begin, a prisoner trapped in a cell asks you to set him free. To do so, you need to defeat the guard and obtain the key. You can choose whether or not to help him, but if you defeat the guard, you will receive a Guardian’s Sword, which is sure to be helpful on your run. Additionally, if you release the prisoner, he will give you armour to help protect you.

You later meet another prisoner who tells you that a perilous journey awaits before you can open the Great Gate and escape Targat, gaining true freedom. The problem is that Vezruvil guards it, so you will need to defeat him to open the path. However, that is not the only requirement: you learn that there are seven relics you must find before reaching the gate. Without all of them, you will never escape. These relics are hidden behind doors that require you to defeat powerful enemies, so it is far from a simple task.

Targat is a place where all the rooms are randomly generated, meaning each run feels different from the last. Hidden within the walls are passages and crawl spaces that contain useful items and gold. The gold you collect is used to purchase items from merchants, but it also has another important purpose: upgrading the equipment in your inventory.

When equipping items, it is very easy to accidentally drop something. The button used for dropping items is the same one typically used to exit menus and return to the previous screen in other games. Fortunately, the dropped item simply falls at your feet, allowing you to pick it up again without issue; it is not gone forever as I had first feared.

Duil features a teleportation system that allows you to warp between all the portal locations you have discovered, which is far more convenient than backtracking on foot; it saves so much time! A map accessible from the pause menu marks all of these portals, making it easy to identify the closest one to your destination.

Throughout your run, you will encounter many hostile creatures trying to stop you. Thankfully, your character has multiple weapon slots available, allowing you to equip both weapons and spells. Early on, I found that swinging your sword or axe felt extremely slow. The attacks lacked fluidity and snappiness, often leaving you vulnerable long enough to be hit while the animation was still playing. You also cannot jump and attack at the same time, which is particularly frustrating.

When you die, you are not simply sent back to a home base to prepare for another run. Instead, you are transported to a mysterious, red-coloured realm filled with platforms and blanketed in fog. Here, I repeatedly took damage from shocks emitted by a portal that eventually sends you back to the prison to begin again. It is unclear why this section exists, as it feels like a needless delay when all you want is to return to the action.

On the plus side, most of your equipment remains after death, except for one randomly selected item that is removed. Unfortunately, this can be extremely frustrating when the lost item happens to be a weapon you have invested heavily in upgrading.

Visually, Duil strongly resembles Dead Cells, with its simplistic, pixel-art style. The environments are filled with hanging skeletons, burning lanterns, and torture devices, all contributing to the harsh and disturbing atmosphere. An eerie soundtrack enhances the experience further, especially when paired with unsettling notes you find scattered throughout the prison. Some describe corpses rising and eating the writer, while another speaks of being tortured daily with red-hot needles, only for the wounds to heal and the torment to begin again. Duil is incredibly bleak and dark.

Overall, Duil is an intriguing game with a disturbing story to uncover. The randomly generated rooms help keep each run fresh, and the multiple endings provide incentive to replay. However, the slow attack animations significantly hinder the experience; it is never fun to take damage simply because your character’s swing is so slow. That said, the story is creepy and interesting, and the ability to upgrade gear directly from the pause menu is incredibly convenient.

If you are a fan of action-adventure RPGs with heavy exploration and an eerie narrative, Duil is worth keeping an eye on. Fans of games like Dead Cells will likely feel at home here, but be prepared for moments of frustration — especially when a weapon that you have heavily upgraded is taken from you when you die.