Dark Souls Meets Dante's Inferno In Dark New RPG

Steam’s upcoming soulslike is dark, gritty and reminiscent of one of the greatest works of fiction ever written, and I’m very excited to play it.

As someone who’s obsessed with soulslikes I’ve always stayed close to FromSoftware, after all it’s the studio that does it best. That said I do like pushing the boat out a bit and seeing what other soulslike games are out there, with some notable examples being Lies Of P and The First Berserker: Khazan.

From the look of things VANRAN might be the next soulslike game to capture my obsession, as from screenshots and gameplay alone it looks like it’s deserving of your time.

The game’s Steam description states VANRAN is a “dark fantasy action RPG where a fallen slave wields a sealed blade to spark rebellion. Stylish soulslike combat, auto-growth, random dungeons, and titanic battles shape a journey with multiple endings of vengeance or salvation.”

An interesting premise right from the word “go” and the gameplay videos have that rhythm to them that you’d typically expect in a Dark Souls-esque game.

We also drew some comparisons to a lesser known title, Dante’s Inferno (2010) which was based on the Divine Comedy.

It had more in common with hack-and-slash games like God Of War or Devil May Cry but VANRAN did remind us of the game from an aesthetic and thematic point-of-view.

The Divine Comedy has also inspired another upcoming game which was shown off during this year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, La Divina Commedia.

At the time of writing VANRAN doesn’t have a release date, nor even a release window, but that’s okay as I feel like this title has a lot of potential and it’d be a shame to rush it out the door when it’s not ready.

It’s worth adding to your wishlist in the meantime though, and hopefully a demo is released at some point so we can try it for ourselves.