Witchaven

Year 1995. Doom has been running on every computer in the neighborhood for a year now, id Software is preparing Quake, and everyone else is trying to figure out how to make money from it. Capstone Software came up with an answer: take the Build engine, add fantasy scenery, mix in a little Heretic and Hexen — and wrap it up as Witchaven.

You take on the role of a lone knight who lands on an island controlled by the evil witch Illwhyrin. The goal is straightforward: hack your way through her lair, defeat various rabble, and prevent the worst. No surprising plot twists, no deep lore — just a man, a blade, and plenty of enemies in dark corridors. For 1995, it was absolutely sufficient.

Witchaven is first-person action with an emphasis on close-quarters combat. Most of the game you're swinging a sword, axe, or hammer; firearms are rather an exception. That was fresh at the time — but the movement and combat system are noticeably clunkier than the competition. Enemies like to come at you in groups, and the camera does unpleasant things during their attacks. The Build engine creaks a bit under the demands that Capstone placed on it. Getting your bearings in the levels is also something else — the maps are labyrinthine in a way that isn't entirely intentional.

What do I remember about this game? The atmosphere. Dark stone dungeons, flickering torches, sounds that came out of the Sound Blaster in genuinely unsettling ways. Capstone couldn't always polish their games to a shine — and Witchaven proves it — but they could set a mood. The game has a rough, unpolished kind of darkness that modern retro-homages usually miss. Today it's visibly aged: controls are clunky, level design occasionally frustrating, and there's a lack of any significant mechanical depth. But within its limits it works as what it's always been — a solid B-game with real atmosphere.

Today Witchaven will appeal most to those who love early-90s first-person shooters without modern conveniences and don't mind that the game doesn't help in January, doesn't kill for free in February, and simply falls apart in March. You can run it in your browser via DOSBox-X or emulators on Archive.org without much fuss. It's not Hexen and it's not Heretic — but you can spend one dark night with it quite well.