Excellent fantasy RPG Wildermyth is turning into a roguelike via DLC

Excessively brilliant fantasy RPG Wildermyth is getting a new DLC pack which both embraces the fad for adding roguelike modes to games, and tugs against it in the shape of what the developers are calling "our most extensively written campaign, by far". The pack is called Omenroad, and if nothing else, it's an opportunity to remind you that if you like campfire yarns and droll webcomics and haven't played Wildermyth then you should get that seen to immediately.

The Omenroad DLC has two components. "For the fighters, we have a roguelike tactical challenge mode with progression across run," the Steam page explains. "And for the lovers, we have A Walk in the Unlight, a new story campaign that uses the Omenroad format to take your heroes past the edge of the Yondering Lands and into worlds beyond." (You will still have to do fights in Omenroad even if you are a lover.)

In the Challenge Mode, you'll run a gauntlet of battles with increasing difficulty, as represented by a new branching node map. You can choose paths to face different threats with different rewards, but there's no story element and as such, no random events. You can, however, promote the veterans of these runs and carry them back into the base game. You can also dial up Peril between runs to steepen the odds, and equip Odes to make your party stronger at the outset.

With these pitiful words I have sought to convey the Omenroad's intricacies, but as Aristotle might say, words are but shadows and dust before the timeless medium of numbers. Here are some numbers, then.

- 20 new boss fights

- 20 new unlockable artifacts and augments

- New Shadow spirit and Shadow weapons to discover in both Omenroad and the base game

- 75 new battle maps with new objectives

- A "Wall of Fame" with 12 challenge-based titles for heroes to earn

People who hate roguelikes as they hate hell and all Montagues might prefer the second half of the DLC, the Neverbefore Ball, which transforms the base roguelike format into something like one of the base game's stories. It follows two adventurers into the Netherflare, a new biome also known as the "land of the lost".

Here you will "encounter faces both fresh and familiar, crossing the phantom-lands of a thousand Yonderings to arrive at a mystical ballroom in a dragon's castle." A ball in a dragon's castle!!! I speak for myself, but I would endure any number of progression wipes and rerolls to experience such a thing.

The Neverbefore Ball uses the same node map as the Challenge mode, featuring around 25 new battle maps. There won't be random story events in this mode either; "instead, all the stories you'll encounter have been written specifically for this campaign, making it our most extensively written campaign, by far," the developers comment.

The Omenroad DLC doesn't have a release date. If you're new to Wildermyth, here's Sin's review from 2021. (Sin also pointed me towards this DLC announcement in our latest Maw liveblog - thank you Sin!) I also recommend Rick Lane's piece on how it was made.