Darklands

Darklands is one of the most ambitious RPGs of its time and also a game that goes its own way in absolutely everything. Instead of elves and dragons it offers the fifteenth-century Holy Roman Empire as people of the time imagined it: knights, guilds, robber barons, and alongside them witches, alchemy, and demons, because for a medieval person all of that was just as real a part of the world. The party of four characters is created through a biography, with the player choosing individual career stages, resulting in someone with a real past, not just a list of numbers. The characters thus enter the game already aged and experienced, which is reflected in their abilities and in what they can afford.

The game has no main quest in the usual sense. You travel across the empire's map between towns, monasteries, mines, and caves, take on contracts, trade, and gradually unravel a conspiracy the player may or may not choose to pursue. Most situations are resolved through text scenes with several options, where the outcome depends on a combination of skills, reputation, and the chosen tactic. Combat runs in real time with the option to pause; magic takes the form of prayers to saints and alchemical potions that must be mixed from ingredients gathered across the whole empire. Time passes, reputation spreads, and in some towns people are already waiting for you, whether with a job offer or an accusation.

Technically the game bet on drawn screens and a lot of text, giving it the feel of an illustrated chronicle; sound-wise it's restrained, but it does a good job of building tension during a nighttime ambush on the road. At the time Darklands was loved for its ideas and atmosphere, and equally notorious for the number of bugs in its first version, which were only fixed by subsequent patches. Today it feels like a fascinating dead end of the genre: slow, text-heavy, and cluttered, but with a historical setting that has practically never been repeated since. For a player who loves history, it's still one of the few titles where you can spend an evening settling guild disputes and immediately after fighting a supposed demon.