Whispers Of The Eyeless, the strategy RPG from the modder behind Total War: Warhammer’s most legendary overhaul, is out now in early access

I was initially sceptical that we’d be seeing dark fantasy strategy RPG Whispers Of The Eyeless any time soon. I follow the game’s creator Venris on YouTube. He’s co-developing this with Evil Gingerbread Studio but his other big project is the Total War: Warhammer III overhaul mod SFO, and it seems barely a month passes without some huge update to that. Venris once told me he mods for around “eight to 12 hours a day”, though, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this cult-shepherding roguelite is now available in Steam early access. Edwin described it as “Darkest Dungeon, but you’re running the dungeon”. That’s better than anything I could come up with, so let’s stick with that.

Loop Hero and Children Of Morta are also influences, as is folklore from Venris’s native Poland. As you can likely glean from the deliciously overwrought trailer narration, this one’s about gradually powering up your cult until you’ve shed the remains of your humanity, and then using that newfound power for wholesome activities like bending a crumbling city to the will of various horrible deities. Like Darkest Dungeon, things like the sanity and the health of your characters have a lasting impact from fight to fight.

You’ll need to keep an eye on cult management by inspiring “fervor” among your cultists “or risk betrayal as doubts creep through the ranks”. There’s subterfuge too, as you “send disciples to weaken rivals, gather resources, and spread your influence”. It looks dense, which isn’t too surprising considering that Venris and the team’s work on SFO has been based around adding even more complexity to an already silly complex game.

Whispers Of The Eyeless’s next major patch is set to arrive later today, with various balancing tweaks based on player feedback. A short campaign seems to be one of the major player bugbears at the moment, which the developers say is one of their chief concerns for the short term. Now, I just need the modder who made these beautiful Brain Froud-ian gnoblars to make a full creature collecting game.