Sprawling worlds with cinematic realism have become a staple of RPGs, but sometimes you just want to experience a fantasy world that’s — well, a little bit different.

Developed by Lovely Hellplace as a solo venture that evolved into a three-person team after securing publishing through DreadXP, Dread Delusion eschews the shackles of cinematic realism and embraces a more atmospheric and imaginative retro-inspired fantasy adventure vibe.

Dread Delusion’s distinct visual style stands out very early on, with players starting the game by selecting to build the player character’s skill set from four available offerings, then further building upon that with four more skills to hone in on.

You can choose to be a brawler that packs a punch, or maybe stealth and lockpicking is more up your alley. Of course, no fantasy RPG is complete without a magical skill track to choose from, as well.

Regardless of your initial choices, the player character awakens locked away inside a cell with only the hollow eyes of a lifeless skeleton staring back at them from the corner of the cell after being imprisoned for past wrongdoings. That imprisonment is only temporary, however, as the Apostatic Union of the Oneiric Isles offers the player the chance to earn their freedom if only they’ll help the Inquisition hunt down the most wanted criminal in the union: the leader of the Dark Star Mercenaries.

Your newfound freedom gives you the opportunity to explore the Oneiric Isles, a collection of floating islands that were created following an apocalyptic event that left the world’s surface unsafe. While there is a main quest line for players to experience, the choice to engage with that story or the sub-quests that can be found by interacting with NPCs is entirely at the behest of the player.

Completing quests can help players collect Delusions, skulls that serve as stand-ins for upgrade points that the player can use to evolve their character over the course of their playthrough.

The Isles host a collection of different environments, including brightly colored but somewhat unsettling mushroom forests and towering cities floating on rocks set against a uniquely hued sky.

Dread Delusion’s visuals are almost crude, emulating the classic 90s and early 2000s low-poly horror art style, but still manage to add charm to this fantasy RPG. In a 2024 interview with Gamesline.net, Lovely Hellplace creative director James Wragg credited Dread Delusion’s “strange aesthetic” with inspiring the team’s creative writing prompts while also helping to break down Dread Delusion’s world into more cohesive elements.

“So many games these days have this pseudo-realistic aesthetic but there’s a disconnect between the realism that you see and the limited interactions that you can make in the space,” said Wragg, “Whereas what I love about this style is that it’s immediately obvious, with a low-poly game, what you can interact with, where you can go, and what you can do. There’s a kind of simplicity and honesty to the low-poly style that I think works pretty well with the game mechanics.”

Wragg documented the development of the game across several dev diaries, often highlighting how the game started off with the intent of being a much smaller project in its earliest days.

Dread Delusion went through a few different genre iterations — even briefly becoming a walking simulator RPG hybrid at one point — before ultimately becoming the open-world RPG inspired by early Bethesda titles that it has grown into today.

Even as the scope of Dread Delusion continued to grow, Lovely Hellplace managed to hold tight to at least one of the game’s earliest goals: to be a “tiny” RPG. Even with its expansive character roster, where every NPC has something to say, Dread Delusion can be comfortably completed in less than 30 hours — making it an excellent bite-sized break in a genre that likes to lean into hundred-plus-hour epic adventures.

Cole is the resident Call of Duty know-it-all and indie game enthusiast for Windows Central. She's a lifelong artist with two decades of experience in digital painting, and she will happily talk your ear off about budget pen displays.