It was looking a bit touch-and-go for real-time stealth-tactics fans after developer Mimimi Games shut up shop following last year’s superb Shadow Gambit. But thankfully it seems there’s more than a little life left in the genre, what with the imminent arrival of the promising Sumerian Six and now this: a new Goya-inspired stealth-tactics adventure from The Game Kitchen, the studio behind the wonderfully moody Blasphemous series.
The Stone of Madness, as it’s known, transports players back in time to an 18th-century Spanish Monastery – serving as both a prison and an asylum – located somewhere in the Pyrenees mountains. Here, five prisoners plan their escape through its gloomy corridors, which, of course, is where all the real-time stealthy stuff starts to come in.
As the adventure unfolds – well , given it promises two fully fledged campaigns, each with unique stories, objectives, and characters – players will alternately control five distinct characters: Agnes, Leonora, Eduardo, Amelia, and Alfredo. Each has their own unique upgradeable skills, enabling them to – among other things – cast spells, distract and kill enemies, stun evil spirits, and access hard-to-reach areas.
However, The Stone of Madness also takes a page from Darkest Dungeon’s playbook, meaning characters also have traumas and phobias players will need to deal with. If these are triggered during their escape, their sanity depletes, eventually causing paranoia, dementia, violent outbursts, and more – “fundamentally changing how the afflicted character is played”.