$24.99Karnage Chronicles Swing Hard, Delve Deep
A VR dungeon crawler where your sword arm, not a dice roll, decides every hit.
Is Karnage Chronicles worth it?
Karnage Chronicles is worth it if…
- you want a VR game where swinging your own arm is the combat system
- you like dungeon crawls with traps, puzzles and loot to dig for
- you have friends to team up with, though solo play works too
- you enjoy physical play: dodging, parrying and mining with your own hands
Screenshots
Built for playing together
Karnage Chronicles supports one to four players, and it bends around your group instead of the other way round. Monster strength and spawn counts scale as people come and go, and drop-in and drop-out is fully supported, so a friend can join mid-dungeon without anyone restarting.
You can even start delving while you wait: the game plays fine solo and lets others slip in when they show up. Party size changes on the fly, which means a session never has to stall on scheduling. There is also a mode where you can hurt your companions, if your friendship needs testing.
Melee combat that means it
There are no random hit chances here: every strike is player skill, and the speed of your swing defines the damage. A lazy flick tickles; a proper blow lands. Enemies block your attacks, you parry theirs, and fights turn into real hand-to-hand exchanges rather than button mashing.
Room-scale VR earns its keep too. You sidestep arrows and duck magic hurled from afar with your actual body. The melee combat is the part players single out as the best they have tried in VR, and it still holds up. You can play as a warrior with sword, shield and crossbow, or an archer with bow, daggers and shield.
Loot, coins and a stash that follows you
Dungeons hide random gear, treasure and trash to sell. You collect coins, mine precious metals, and spend your earnings at shops that open up as you progress. Picking things up is physical: loot is grabbed by touch, and sweeping a big shield across a pile of coins is a legitimate harvesting technique.
Everything you want to keep goes in your Private Stash, shared between all your characters and even accessible when you join other people's sessions. Found a great ring at the end of a run? Hand it to your next character and start the new one already well dressed.
Dungeons with a tabletop soul
The campaign reads like a good tabletop dungeon delve: branching paths, ambushes, traps, NPCs handing out missions, lore tucked into corners and big boss fights at the end of it. There are puzzles too, and some of them you solve with your own head, because walkthroughs for this game are scarce.
Your progress is never lost to real life. Dungeon state is saved when you leave, even if you quit the game entirely, so you can return and find the dungeon exactly as you abandoned it, monsters and all.
What should you know before starting?
Can you play it solo?
Yes. The game is designed for one to four players, with monster strength and spawn numbers scaling to the current party, and full drop-in and drop-out support. Solo works well on its own; it just gets louder with friends.
How does the combat actually work?
It is all physical skill, no dice rolls. Your swing speed sets your damage, you parry or block with your weapon and shield, and you dodge incoming arrows and magic by moving your real body in room-scale space.
Is the archer class any good?
It exists, but be warned: enemies are very good at dodging arrows, and landing shots at range takes real patience. The warrior's crossbow and melee weapons are the more forgiving path, and melee is where the combat shines most.
Does your progress carry over?
Your dungeon state is saved when you quit, even mid-run, and your Private Stash is shared across all your characters, so gear found on one can outfit the next. It stays available even when you join other players' sessions.
What is the setting and who do you play?
You play a Murkwraith, an undying knight cursed to eternal servitude for sins from eons ago, barred from Death's domain. Every five thousand years the planets align and tear a rift in the cosmos, and your story unfolds just before such an event, across dark dungeons full of monsters, traps and treasure.
