Posted September 17, 2025 by Martin
The industry is starved for games that dare to be different. Arkheron could be just what gaming needs.
You’ll want some context for this one. Here, watch this:
Arkheron is a new game in development at Bonfire Studios. It’s an isometric, loot-driven PvPvE Battle Royale action-RPG, and if that sounds like the deranged ravings of a lightning-struck madman, congratulations, you now understand why I am profoundly excited about this game.
It’s been a tough decade for video games. Sequels featuring established IP dominate every quarter, and the continuing waves of mass layoffs following the 2020 hiring boom show just how fraught the task of making modern games is. Triple-A publishers keep making big bets, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the hopes of launching the next big thing, and when those bets don’t pan out, the results are disastrous. I’m never going to fault anyone for being ambitious. But one thing I keep seeing over and over is that with massive budgets come massive scope and massive complexity. The end result is games that look photorealistic, feature wonderfully intricate and interlinked systems, invite players to roam freely through ever larger game worlds, but are utterly unsure of themselves.
Arkheron isn’t that. In fact, I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a game that was this absolutely certain of its own identity. Which is ironic, in a way, given the “lost souls” vibe in the game’s reveal trailer.
Oh, you haven’t watched the reveal trailer? Well, allow me:
The games that have found both commercial and critical acclaim in recent months have all had one thing in common: they all knew EXACTLY what they were about. And I get that same sense of confident self-assuredness from Arkheron as well.
You’ve played games that felt like they were just going through the motions. You know the kind: the team shooter that adds typical team-shooter mechanics because “that’s what players expect,” the live service game that adds a seasonal battle pass because “that’s what everyone else is doing,” or really any game that adds features because they’re more comfortable following an established blueprint than interrogating why certain design decisions are popular or how well established conventions can be broken in new and interesting ways. Those are games where I can tell immediately that the team behind them didn’t have the confidence to push beyond the tried-and-true, opting to play it safe instead.
There’s nothing wrong with playing it safe. But you’re not going to get people excited if you serve them a flavor they’ve already tasted.
Here’s why I think Bonfire is confident about Arkheron: They’ve taken a handful of familiar flavors and absolutely DRENCHED them in spicy sauce.
A class-less multiplayer action RPG? Preposterous! And it’s a series of increasingly intense mini-Battles Royale inside a larger Battle Royale, like a chaotic and escalating game of musical chairs? Surely you’re joking. And it’s a brand-new IP?! Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.
So, Arkheron’s a pretty confident game right out the gate. That’s nice. Love to see it. But from all the material that’s been released, I get the sense that all that confidence coincides with another key ingredient for success: Laser-focus on the fun.
In each Arkheron match, 15 teams of three players each compete against each other. That means in each match, there will be 42 losers and only three winners. This is the core problem of every Battle Royale game: your odds of victory are slim, and for every glorious win you’ll suffer dozens of humiliating defeats. Arkheron’s solution to this problem seems to be to make the game as fast-paced as possible, keeping the moment-to-moment gameplay snappy and interesting.
That strikes me as really clever. The fact that characters don’t come with pre-defined roles but gain abilities based on the loot they find in the Tower, that says to me that every match will play differently, and it gives the team a huge design space to work within for their itemization. This level of replayability and unpredictability, these constant opportunities for delightful surprises, I think will be one of the game’s biggest strengths. The more Bonfire leans into this, the better.
Then there’s the camera. Isometric games like Diablo or MOBAs like League of Legends are usually played from a static angle, but the camera in Arkheron is on a swivel. It has to be; otherwise, players could hide behind geometry, which would suck.
There are a bunch more little touches throughout the two videos, both in terms of lore but also game design, that really sing to me. I could go on. Bottom line, this team is cooking, and I’m enthused.
Like I alluded to earlier, the gaming industry is in a difficult spot right now. Has been, for a while. Everyone is groaning about the cost of making games, the difficulty of finding an audience, the headaches from how A.I. is upending game development, how hard it is to convince anyone to fund games that are trying to do something new, either with a new IP or game design that’s off the wall and unique.
But, like, look at these system requirements. (via the game’s official FAQ)
Recommended:
Minimum:
I could play Arkheron on my potato-quality laptop and still exceed the recommended specs. These are shockingly low requirements. And if you’ve watched the trailers, you’ll hopefully agree that the game looks gorgeous even despite (or because of?) its relatively humble visual demands.
So, yeah. A confident game focused on fun, playable without asking anyone to break the bank. I’m not being paid to write this (god, I wish), but you should really wishlist this game on Steam. Like, today.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this one. And you should, too.
See you Towerside.