The Necromancer’s Tale is a story-rich, top-down RPG from Psychic Software that transports players to an alternate 18th-century Europe. You assume the role of a minor noble who obtains a forbidden spellbook, setting you on a path of occult power and vengeance across an alternative-history Kingdom near Venice and the Adriatic Sea.
This is a world in transition—where Enlightenment ideals wage a silent war against lingering superstition, where alchemy gives way to chemistry yet dark magic still holds sway. Between court conspiracies and supernatural horrors, every decision risks your sanity. Will you master the arcane arts for your own ends, or be consumed by them? Your choices alone will determine your fate.
After spending some time in demo mode, The Necromancer’s Tale officially released today, 17 July 2025. The demo version showcased the game’s core mechanics, offering access to the prologue and the first three chapters—effectively setting the foundation for the story. The full release expands on this with previously omitted scenes, particularly from the prologue’s backstory and character creation, giving players additional content to explore.
The narrative premise remains unchanged, and the journey once again begins with the text-driven, quest-like prologue, where players shape their character’s past. It’s a refreshing approach, transforming classic character generation into a storytelling experience. The entire prologue is fully voiced, with a narrator who masterfully shifts between tones, capturing the distinct voices and moods of different NPCs. Playing through this section feels like sitting in a library while someone reads a book aloud just for you—a cozy, immersive touch that adds undeniable charm to the game.
The game’s interactive elements truly begin when our protagonist returns home for their father’s funeral. From this point onward, the main character takes on the role of narrator, shifting the text into a first-person account told in the past tense. Dialogue choices, actions, and events are all filtered through the protagonist’s voice—sometimes to an almost comical degree, as in lines like “I didn’t have [item name] in my hands.” It’s clear we’re not experiencing the story in real time, but rather reconstructing memories, helping the protagonist piece together their past. This approach, continuing the mood set by the prologue, gives the game a distinct tone—less like living through history and more like writing a memoir.
The Necromancer’s Tale offers three difficulty modes to suit different preferences: Story Mode lets players focus entirely on narrative and quests, with battles resolved automatically. However, attention must still be paid to battle points, equipment, and party composition, as these influence the auto-resolve outcome—just without requiring tactical input. Balanced Mode and Strategic Mode deliver a more involved experience, varying in combat difficulty and introducing additional restrictions, such as adjusted sell prices and limited skill point pools.
No matter which mode you choose, the core gameplay remains rooted in an RPG where choices and actions carry significant weight. The game features relationship and talent systems influenced by the player’s decisions, shaping story progression. This intricate mechanic may not be immediately noticeable at the story’s start, but its impact becomes evident over time, subtly altering NPC reactions and available choices.
The narrative is a standout strength of The Necromancer’s Tale, carrying much of the game’s appeal. The prose is engaging, with distinct character voices, styles, and mannerisms tailored to each role. A drunkard speaks differently from a noble or a guard captain, rascal kids can genuinely annoy, and certain old ladies evoke compassion. The story flows smoothly, keeping players engaged and eager to uncover the next chapter and the mysteries surrounding the protagonist’s family.
While some games, like Disco Elysium or even Undertale, demonstrate how a powerful narrative can elevate a game to great heights, visual novels belong to a distinct genre. However, strong prose and compelling stories alone are often not enough to sustain a game’s success.
The gameplay of The Necromancer’s Tale evokes the feel of classic RPGs, with no hand-holding pointers, clear maps with glowing beacons, or markers above NPCs. Players rely solely on a journal filled with the protagonist’s notes and their own wits to navigate the story. At times, progress can stall until you realize you’ve missed a conversation with a seemingly random NPC, which can be frustrating but adds to the old-school charm.
This design may confuse casual players, yet it enhances the role-playing immersion, mirroring the protagonist’s own confusion and uncertainty. The game feels old-fashioned—some might even say outdated—in other aspects as well. The inventory system, for instance, is clunky and basic, requiring manual transfer of items from the bag to the character’s equipment through separate menus. Similarly, the battle system feels rudimentary and occasionally cumbersome, with extra actions that likely serve the narrative but disrupt the flow and excitement of combat.
Visually, however, the game shines with its stunning hand-drawn art, particularly in the necromancer’s grimoire. The aesthetics of this book are breathtaking, pulling players into a different world with ornate lettering and enigmatic illustrations that unveil the secrets of dark magic rituals. It’s the kind of tome that feels like it belongs printed and hidden away in a library, not confined to pixels on a screen.
Unfortunately, the 3D environment fails to match the quality of the 2D art, feeling dated alongside the game’s design and mechanics. The release version saw no improvements in this area.
The game was clearly designed with a painterly effect in mind to mask the shortcomings of low-poly models and modest texture resolution—a common technique, as seen in games like Inscryption, to unify asset visuals through post-processing.
However, this approach doesn’t give The Necromancer’s Tale a fresh or original look. The blurry shader effects can only conceal so many imperfections before they risk frustrating players over time. Without the shader, the game resembles a relic from the past, evoking classic top-down RPGs like Beyond Divinity or the early Baldur’s Gate titles.
I was eagerly anticipating bug fixes and performance improvements in the release version of The Necromancer’s Tale. The demo had minor bugs and visual glitches, which seemed typical of a raw, work-in-progress build, so I naturally expected these to be addressed in the full release.
Unfortunately, the final version disappointed me the moment I launched it.
Performance wasn’t my primary concern—indie games often struggle with optimization, and even those with minimal graphics can strain systems. However, the issues I encountered were specific to in-game moments. Most perplexing was the UI, where some windows retained default, placeholder frames. This felt odd given the development team’s evident artistic talent. It’s possible this was an oversight, like missing graphics or incorrect file paths, but even after several patches since I downloaded the game, nothing has changed.
One more odd and amusing incident occurred while navigating the city. I tried to interact with a random NPC, expecting dialogue or perhaps no response at all, but instead, the game prompted, “Are you sure you want to attack the citizen?” What? No! I just wanted to talk, and my character wasn’t even holding a weapon. Why would the game assume I intended to attack?
The final straw was a game-breaking bug that halted my adventure. My character suddenly stopped moving, the UI buttons became unresponsive, and my only option was to quit the main menu. In some games, a save-and-reload at the same point can fix such issues, but the save button was inexplicably inactive. Admittedly, it’s partly my fault for losing an hour of progress by relying on autosave—whose mechanics I’m still unclear about. Still, I never expected the game to crash so abruptly, especially outside of combat.
Another funny and strange thing that happened on my way through the city was the attempt to talk to a random NPC, but instead of dialogue or nothing at all, the game asked “Are you sure you want to attack the citizen?” No? I wanted to talk to them, I don’t even hold a weapon. Why do you think I want to attack them?
The final point of my adventure became a bug – blocker, when my characters stopped walking, the UI buttons refused to respond and the only option available was quitting to the main menu. Sometimes such a thing happens in the games and can be solved by save and reload at the exact same point, but the save button wasn’t active at the moment.
Of course, it’s my own fault that I’ve lost an entire hour of progress, relying only on auto save, which I’m not sure how actually works. But I never expected to lose the game so abruptly without even going to the battle.
The Necromancer’s Tale delivers a deeply mixed experience, feeling quite unpolished even for a small, passionate indie team. Its unique charm and captivating story leave you craving more, but it needs significant refinement to truly shine. If, like me, you were eager for the release to dive into its mysteries, I’d recommend waiting for a few more patches before returning to this world—or simply embracing its flaws and diving into the adventure as is.
