And this is just one of the disciples that will aid you in conquering all...
Rogue Lords is a dark fantasy roguelike game developed by Leikir Studio and Cyanide Studio, released on September 30, 2021.
Years ago, the Devil and his forces were defeated by the Demon Hunters lead by Van Helsing, forcing him to retreat to Hell to recover his strength. However, when fresh souls to nourish his power were dwindling, he decided to take matters into his own hands and return to the New World, where he would recruit new disciples and take the fight to the hunters that defeated him, who have now established a divine order leading the land, once and for all.
And the best part? YOU are the Devil! And you must direct your disciples to use every means necessary to retrieve the stolen artifacts and spread corruption upon the world. Even better, there's nothing wrong with cheating to get closer to achieving the best results.
Rogue Lords conquers these examples:
- Agent Provocateur: The disciples have the option to either scare children or to infiltrate organizations of Sanctua Lumen to corrupt impressionable minds.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Having successfully defeated Van Helsing and restoring the power of his artifacts, The Devil is restored to full power, and can finally meddle with the mortal realm without further interference from the Sanctua Lumen or the Demon Hunters.
- Corrupt Church: Sanctua Lumen, for all its presentation as practitioners of good and helping the less fortunate, have been practicing unethical experiments, purging magical relics and fountains of their arcane powers, and perpetuating the White Plague to make the populace rely heavily on them for help.
- Deal with the Devil: The Devil was able to acquire his disciples (the playable characters) because they made a pact with him for whatever reason. The disciples have the option to offer a pact to any NPCs they encounter in order to accomplish a task.
- Equipment Upgrade: In each chapter, Disciples can upgrade their skills by acquiring two more of the same skill in combat or paying the Grim Reaper to make the upgrade.
- The Grim Reaper: The reaper of souls himself makes an appearance in the game, but this time around he sells skills and relics to your Disciples in exchange for souls.
- Healing Spring: The Styx Fountains can be used to either recover Diabolic Essence or to remove negative traits from your Disciple.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first chapter has you attempt to take the fight to Van Helsing. However, it is clear there's no winning because Van Helsing comes in with 9, 999 Health and Spiritual Points and can't be damaged as easily.
- Life Drain: Some disciples can take HP and/or SP from their enemies to regain health. Enemies can also do the same with their skills.
- Loot Command: Some events allow you to search locations and bodies for skills or relics to add or upgrade on.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Using Devil Mode, the player can manipulate events and the battlefield by spending a number of Diabolic Essence to gain more favorable results.
- Multiple Persuasion Modes: Depending on the choices offered in events, the chosen Disciple partaking the mission can gain Skills, Souls, or anything else by using Temptation, Ruse, or Scare.
- Mystical Plague: One of the events can lead your Disciples to discover the Sanctua Lumen used a magic ritual to create a White Plague against the population, allowing them to use the hearts of the corpses for their experiments and enforce dependence on them for help.
- Opening Monologue: The game opens with the Devil regaling how years ago, he and his forces were defeated at the hands of the Demon Hunters, forcing him to retreat to Hell to recuperate. Then, when he couldn't acquire more souls to regain his strength, he decides to take matters into his own hands.
- Public Domain Character: Plenty of them. The disciples of the Devil are based on characters ranging from literature to urban legends.
- Random Event: In each chapter, you can enter a random zone where you won't know what zone you'll get until you enter it.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Some of the designs of the disciples have the color combination of red and black.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: All the disciples are depicted with red eyes, signifying their moral alignment and they are aligned with the Devil himself.
- Rule of Seven:
- After the tutorial, you have seven bosses to fight, one for each chapter, including the final boss.
- After collecting the six artifacts, a seventh artifact is brought to the Devil and his Disciples' attention they had to find.
- Snake Oil Salesman: Some events have you encounter charlatans that either sell relics with varying degrees of potency or remedies supposedly made from human hearts.
- Turn-Based Combat: Players determine which Disciple's skills to use on their turn before the enemy take their turn.
- Weird Currency: Souls are your currency in the game, which you can use to buy skills and relics from the Grim Reaper.
- White and Red and Eerie All Over: Other designs of the disciples give off the opposite effect of their fellow members.
- Witch Hunt: Since the establishment of Sanctua Lumen, demon hunters have been hunting witches relentlessly, leading to even innocents falsely accused of witchcraft to be burned too.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: You have the option to devour the soul of any victim you come across in different events depending on your choices.
