Enthusiasts Using FromSoftware’s Decades-Old Development Tools to Craft New Role-Playing Games

Fans of damp tunnels and chatty skeletons may have enjoyed Lunacid, a first-person dungeon crawler which left early access in October 2023. Sin called it “lo-fi first-person dungeon skulking done right” and suggested that it “could well earn a place in some best of the year lists”. (It didn’t appear on ours, but in fairness, that was the year Baldur’s Gate 3 devoured everybody’s brain.)

Lunacid takes copious inspiration from Dark Souls developer FromSoftware’s old Shadow Tower and King’s Field games for PS1. Now, creators KIRA LLC are going even further with Lunacid: Tears Of The Moon – a new RPG made using FromSoftware’s ancient Sword Of Moonlight: King’s Field game creation tools from 2000, which came with hundreds of map parts, objects and characters plus scripting features and the ability to insert AVI movies and even a credits reel.

Officially released only in Japan, Sword Of Moonlight granted buyers unlimited use of the King’s Field intellectual property, including the right to release and sell their own games. While hardly the Unity Engine of its day, it fostered a quietly thriving fangame scene with projects such as Diadem Of Maunstraut finding an audience overseas.

Even if you don’t jive with elderly fangames, Lunacid – Tears of the Moon has charm. Like many a FromSoftwork, it takes place in a fallen kingdom and sees you journeying underground to soothe/defeat a restless cosmic being. Not being familiar with Sword Of Moonlight, I can’t say how much it tests the capabilities of FromSoftware’s 25-year-old toolset, but I enjoy the lurid smog of the dungeons and the lumbering choreography of the first-person combat.

Tears Of The Moon will release on 12th April 2025 – here’s the Steam page. While reading up on Sword Of Moonlight, I also stumbled on this King’s Field 2 preservation project, which makes use of the same tools. It seems like a noble enterprise, though sadly the creator has run into difficulties following a schizophrenia diagnosis. If you’re checking out Tears Of The Moon, maybe show this some love, too.

Thanks to SeekerX for spotting this one.