Similar to Dark Souls, you can embark on multiple NG+ cycles with difficulty scaling for the first ten and enemies even having random auras and effects to increase their lethality. Of course, you can find NG+ versions of weapons and equipment to improve your survivability and damage as well.

Fans keen on a new playthrough can also discover three new weapons – two daggers (Aurora and Crimson Slicer) and a two-handed mace (Reignbreaker). Update 1.6 also offers some much-needed quality-of-life changes, such as removing and refunding the cost of skill upgrades, unlearning individual nodes, and an option to Quick Buy/Sell.

Check out some of the patch notes below. Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. You can read our review of the base game here.

Update 1.6 Patch Notes

New Game+ Has Arrived

• Brace yourself for the ultimate trial. With New Game+, you can now restart your journey using your battle-hardened Inquisitor and progress through as many NG+ cycles as you dare. Difficulty will continue to scale for the first 10, each one more punishing than the last.
• Enemies grow tougher with every cycle, scaling their strength to match your power.
• NG+ versions of weapons, off-hands, and rings can now be found to upgrade your arsenal.
• Random empowered auras and effects will appear on enemies, offering both greater danger and greater rewards.
• Prefer to take it easy? You can also replay the base game at NG+0 with your fully equipped Inquisitor.

New Content & Features

• New Weapons Added: Aurora (Mid-game Daggers), Crimson Slicer (Late-game Daggers), and Reignbreaker (Late-game Two-Handed Mace).

Quality of Life Updates

• Added a feature that allows players to remove Skill Upgrades and refund their cost at the Witch Altar.
• Individual Talents and Nodes can now be unlearned and refunded at the Witch Altar.
• Added an option to instantly learn Talents and Nodes with a single button press.
• Vendor items now display a small icon to indicate if they are not yet unlocked in your Collection.
• Increased Witch Stone selection radius when the Map view is zoomed out.
• Added Quick Buy/Sell to the General tab of the Options window.

Gameplay Improvements

Movement & Combat

• Glide can now be activated during a later phase of the jump/fall.
• Glide’s auto-cancel height has been lowered to reduce events where Glide gets cancelled by unintended early landing.
• Increased the time window for grabbing ledges and ladders during falls.
• You can now turn around during Heavy Attack wind-up.
• From now on, your Character will only let go of ledges and walls when taking heavy damage.
• Sprint and Roll no longer consume Stamina in Tombstone Hollows.
• Controller vibration fine-tuned across various attacks.

The trailer also showcases some of the other new content that has been added to the game since its release, including a new secret chamber in Forsaken Mine, as well as a new area in Braer Castle. Previous updates also brought with them a new Witch Stone before the final boss of the game that can take players to Forsaken Mine.

“Ongoing post-launch updates are a cornerstone of community-focused game development, enabling teams to refine, rebalance, and expand the experience in direct response to player feedback,” wrote the studio in its announcement of the post-launch update. “The dedicated Mandragora community has played a vital role in shaping each patch, and both Primal Game Studio and Knights Peak remain committed to this collaborative approach.”

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has also gotten a host of quality-of-life and balance adjustments. These include more difficulty options, a bigger marker limit for map checkmarks, new shortcuts, clearer feedback on enemy HP, and camera and UI tweaks for Entropy zones.

Released back in April, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a side-scrolling Soulslike action RPG that allows players to play as one of six unique classes. These classes provide a variety of gameplay, from swords and shields to powerful spells, which players will have to use to take on “nightmarish creatures”. The game boasts of a vast, interconnected world that players can explore to find unique items and crafting recipes.

Its story revolves around the land of Faelduum being on the edge of ruin, and players take on on the role of an Inquisitor tasked with rooting out heretics in the area and enforcing the will of the King Priest. Along the way, players will get to explore different locales, from the majestic Crimson City, to the horrifying lands of Entropy.

Over the course of the game, players will get to take on 60 quests across its 75 unique locations. Players will also get to explore the world to find secrets, hidden treasures, and new characters that might shed more light on what is happening in the land of Faelduum.

Since its release, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has gotten plenty of updates. The last major one of these, released back in May, brought the game up to version 1.5. The update brought with it a new area in Braer Castle, complete with its own reward, as well as a host of other items that players can find.

For more details about Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree – available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch – check out our review, where we gave the title a score of 7 out of 10. In our review, we praised the game’s art direction and level design, while criticising its lacklustre passive skill tree and some of the grindiness of its crafting system.

Hela puts players in the tiny shoes of adventurous mice. The title has quite a bit of emphasis on playing in co-op, with plenty of puzzles that players will have to work together to solve in order to progress through the adventure. Along the way, players will get to visit environments that were inspired by Scandinavia.

The story in Hela is told primarily through fragments that can be found by exploring the world and solving its several puzzles. The player will also have to make copious use of their magical backpack in order to solve the puzzles throughout the game.

Hela is coming to PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

However, you start on the opposite side – the Inquisition. During the “trial” of a witch, your character opts to execute her and gains witch-like powers in the process. The extent of this is unknown, but the Powers That Be are far from happy with your display of defiance. Still, power is power, and even you’re sent to locate another witch in the wilds. An ominous voice slowly creeps through your thoughts, however. Surely, it won’t lead down any dark paths.

The premise is intriguing enough, and Mandragora has some solid voice acting to back it up, yet some dialogue and characterization aren’t the best. You’ll still encounter some intriguing characters, like the tailor Shirin, who mysteriously knows how to circumvent many of the dangers of travelling, but most of the personality lies in the ambient dialogue of passersby.

"Speaking of the bosses, they’re not exactly Dark Souls caliber in terms of mechanics but still pose a decent challenge if you’re appropriately levelled."

Hearing a father annoying his daughter with a dad joke or two NPCs haggling over prices felt natural; even the banter and taunts from bandits and brigands lent to the world-building and personality. A shame that my character can’t quite match it, with the voice acting and dialogue feeling like the most forced of the “protagonist who talks to themselves too much” archetype. It’s not super overbearing, but it did elicit an eye roll or two on occasion.

The journey is more important than the hero in this case and Mandragora offers some rather solid level design. The relative safety and civilization of the city gives way to the boondocks, with swamps, and ruined buildings containing all manner of monsters and towns on their last legs. More than one system of sewers awaits, but they feel varied enough, one packed with poisonous slimes and straightforward corridors versus another with extensive ledges and platforming.

The freedom to explore is also quite nice, even if it meant running into a wolf-like boss that was clearly out of my league (clones are cheating, and I will not back down from this stance). Side quests can be fairly straightforward, like cleansing an area of threats, and work just fine while incentivizing exploration. I’m not the biggest fan of the sheer number of locked chests, especially in the early going when lockpicks aren’t super common drops, but at least it’s something to return to for completion’s sake if nothing else.

Speaking of the bosses, they’re not exactly Dark Souls caliber in terms of mechanics but still pose a decent challenge if you’re appropriately levelled. It did seem like there were one too many giant rats in the early going, but the threats diversify as you go along with some truly devious (and rage-inducing) affairs. Which brings me to one of the game’s more annoying issues.

"Combat is solid though, with multiple classes and weapon types to choose from, I went with the Flameweaver, which provided solid physical and magic damage alongside decent sustainability."

Movement as a whole feels decent, especially when dodge-rolling through enemy attacks or jumping over obstacles. It’s usually on point when grabbing ledges and dropping down…except when it’s not, and you take fall damage (and sometimes die). The randomness of this would throw me off at times, and since you need to backtrack from the nearest checkpoint, it can become frustrating. Don’t even get me started on the finicky nature of dropping down onto ledges.

Combat is solid though, with multiple classes and weapon types to choose from, I went with the Flameweaver, which provided solid physical and magic damage alongside decent sustainability. Each class has an extensive passive tree, though many game-changing options are much farther along.

The majority of nodes are committed to stat increases, and that’s fine – it just makes some level-ups significantly less exciting, especially when the closest major nodes provide options like “Eight percent increased damage after casting a fire spell.” However, the twist is that other class skills can be discovered while exploring, and you can allot points to other passive trees.

You still need the corresponding relic, which can cost gold in the early going, and switching to a separate weapon set is required, but it’s an interesting approach to multiclassing. A separate system is also in place for diversifying skills to reduce mana costs or increase Adrenaline on hits, adding further wrinkles to builds.

With the sheer amount of resources dropped and discovered, it’s no surprise that crafting is a major component, though it’s mostly relegated to “Take these materials to the vendor and make something.” The problem is that unlocking the ability to craft certain blueprints requires levelling up the vendor, which is a separate grind unto itself. Your mileage may vary on this – some may appreciate it, but I sure didn’t.

"Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is still a title where its many parts don’t particularly add up to something greater than the whole."

If there’s one area in which Mandragora deserves unequivocal praise, it’s the visuals and art direction. Reminiscent of No Rest for the Wicked but with thinner outlines, there’s a hand-drawn aura to the environments with gorgeous lighting and shadows that truly set the mood. The giant portraits of key characters in conversations also look great, even if some are jarringly different from their character models. Animations are top-tier – watching a smaller monster’s blade slip out of its hands and impale it upon death is but one of many examples of excellent attention to detail.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is still a title where its many parts don’t particularly add up to something greater than the whole. Some parts are worthwhile, like the combat; others, like the progression and crafting, could use further polish and improvements.

While I wasn’t super-invested in the story, it was still fun to push forward, discover new environments, scoff at dead ends and revisit places to see if I could progress forward. Does it qualify among the best platformers or Souls-like games out there? No, but it’s a solid combination worth checking out and may surprise you with its presentation, combat and enemy design. Just do yourself a favor and think twice before any death-defying leaps, at least until a few patches drop.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

WHAT IS IT?

If you believe, as we do, that you can never have too many Metroidvanias- rejoice. Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a 2.5D sidescrolling Metroidvania action RPG that also incorporates Soulslike elements. Set in a dark fantasy world, according to writer Brian Mitsoda, the game takes inspiration from Castlevnia and Berserker. “Personally, one of the things that drew me to the project was the strong Castlevania influence, as that’s one of my favorite games series of all time,” Mitsoda told Xbox Wire. “The dark fantasy elements reminded me of Berserk, and there was also a bit of traditional folk tale and fairy tale influence.”

STORY AND SETTING

Mandragora is set in the fantasy realm of Faelduum, whose peace is oh-so-predictably being threatened. Chaos comes in the form of mysterious and unknowable tears in the fabric of reality, created by a parallel plane of existence known only as Entropy. Through these tears, all manner of dark forces and horrifying creatures are leaking out into the reality of Faelduum. Players play as a warrior known as the Inquisitor, who embarks on a quest to defeat the forces of Entropy.

PLAYER CHOICE

How much emphasis Mandragora is going to put on its story in the grand scheme of things remains to be seen, but interestingly enough, it will be one of several areas where it will offer players control over their own experience. Speaking to Xbox Wire, writer Brian Mitsoda confirmed that the game will allow you to impact the story with dialogue choices. He said, “We let the player define who the Inquisitor is with their dialogue and story choices, so the main character’s fate isn’t set in stone.”

WORLD AND EXPLORATION

Touting itself as a Metroidvania experience, Mandragora is unsurprisingly focusing quite heavily on exploration. The game touts a vast and varied world with over 75 locations, according to its developers, randing from forests, deserts, and mountains to dark caves, formidable cityscapes, dangerous swamps, and more. According to the developers, players can expect plenty of secrets, treasures, mysterious characters, and more.

CLASSES

When creating your Inquisitor, you’ll be able to pick between one of six different classes, each enabling very different playstyles. The Vanguard will be focused on melee combat, two-handed weapons, and heavy armour, while the Spellbinder will specialize in chaos magic and one-handed weapons. There’s the Flameweaver class, which, as its name suggests, will focus on fire magic and attacks, and the Nightshade class, which duel wields daggers. The other two classes that will be available, on whom details are scarce, are Vindicator and Wyldwarden.

COMBAT DETAILS

As we touched on earlier, the Soulslike genre is one of several that Madragora is taking cues from, which, of course, will come through in its combat gameplay as well. Light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges, blocks, and a stamina bar will be crucial, as will paying attention to a diverse roster of enemies and their different attacks and movesets. Meanwhile, similar to Diablo-esque action RPGs, you can also expect an emphasis on a variety of abilities and managing cooldowns.

PROGRESSION

Multifaceted progression mechanics to allow players maximum control over their build is another area where Mandragora seems to be putting quite a bit of its focus on. Players will find a wealth of loot and gear to equip, on top of which you’ll also use the progression currency known as Essence to upgrade your stats and passive buffs. Additionally, a large skill tree will also provide additional options.

LENGTH

Everything that we’ve learned about Mandragora gives the impression of a larger and more expansive game than many may expect. Sure enough, that will apply to its runtime as well. According to Primal Game Studio, the game will feature a main story that can take over 40 hours to wrap up, which presumably implies an even longer runtime for those who are diving deeper into the game’s optional content.

MUSIC AND AUDIO

Primal Game Studio has collaborated with plenty of eye-catching talent for Mandragora’s development, by the look of things. In addition to aforementioned writer Brian Mitsoda of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines fame, the studio has also worked with GReek musician Christos Antoniou (a.k.a. Septicflesh) and the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague for the game’s soundtrack. Meanwhile, the game also features full English voice acting.

DIFICULTY OPTIONS

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is taking plenty of inspiration from Soulslikes, but it where accessibility and approachability are concerned, it seems to be taking a different tenor. The game will feature a range of difficulty options, with players being allowed to set sliders for enemy health, enemy damage, and player stamina between 70 percent and 100 percent.

NEW GAME PLUS

With RPGs that offer the level of flexibility and customization that Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree seems to be touting, repeat playthroughs with carried over progress are a big draw for many. Thankfully, Mandragora won’t disappoint here. The developers have confirmed a New Game Plus option will be available, so you can start repeat playthroughs without erasing your character’s progression.

DEMO

If you’re intrigued by Mandragora but want to get first-hand experience of the game’s offerings before deciding to commit, thankfully, a demo option is available. Available only on Steam, the demo gives players glimpses of the game’s combat, progression, setting, exploration, and story.

PC REQUIREMENTS

For those who wish to play Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on PC, luckily enough, the game’s system requirements are quite modest. On minimum settings, for instance, the game will require either an i5 6500 or a Ryzen 5 1400, along with either a GeForce GTX 1060 (with 6 GB VRAM) or an RX 480, as well as 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, the game will need either an i5 7600k or a Ryzen 5 3600X, along with either a Geforce RTX 2070 (with 8 GB VRAM) or an RX 6600 XT, and 16 GB of RAM.

PRICE

When Mandragora launches not long from now, players will be able to jump in at a fairly reasonable price. The action RPG will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store) for a price of $39.99. A Digital Deluxe Edition with a handful of bonuses and additional cosmetics will also be available for $49.99.

A “BELIEVEABLE” EXPERIENCE

Let’s sign off with this one, because for those looking for a different twist to a familiar genre, this particular aspect of Mandragora might catch the eye. Speaking with the Epic Games Store blog, lead game designer Gabor Szabo explained that the developers’ goal is to create a “believable” experience with the action RPG, in the sense that the world and the things in it would behave and react the way you would expect. “Our goal was to create a believable experience,” Szabo said. “So if you see a dumb monster—a zombie, for example—it will not escape, it will not run from you. It will act as a target dummy, for example. But if you encounter a skilled assassin—an enemy assassin—we, as a player, expect it to behave like it’s a skilled assassin. So it will jump, it will roll behind you, it will try to punish you for your mistakes.

“So that was our goal when setting up different kinds of AIs. That is also true for the bosses. We have some huge, powerful but stupid bosses, which can kill you with one hit, but they are very dumb so you can easily outsmart them. Of course we have smart bosses [who] try to kill you in any way possible.”

STORY AND SETTING

Tempest Rising is set in an alternate history Earth where the Cuban Missile Crisis went in a drastically different direction, sparking World War 3 and leaving chaos in its wake. Thirty-four years later, huge portions of the war-torn planet are heavily irradiated, though as luck would have it, these areas are also where the newly emerged, mysterious, plant-like energy source known as Tempest is found. As you would expect, Tempest is highly coveted by warring factions, who are locked in conflict as a result.

INSPIRED BY COMMAND AND CONQUER

In case it wasn’t abundantly clear by now, yes, Tempest Rising is heavily inspired by Command and Conquer, to the extent that its developers have outright described it as a spiritual successor. From its war-torn setting and the narrative premise at its core to other gameplay and narrative details (that we’ll get into in a bit), the game is wearing its Command and Conquer influences pretty proudly on its sleeve. What’s more, Tempest Rising’s music is also being composed by Frank Klepacki, who is best known for Command and Conquer.

CAMPAIGNS

As you’d expect from a real-time strategy game claiming to be inspired by Command and Conquer, Temptest Rising will feature two campaigns. Two factions, as we touched on, will be at the heart of the game’s story, and each of the game’s two campaigns will see you playing as a different one.

CAMPAIGN LENGTH

By the look of it, Tempest Rising will boast pretty substantial single-player offerings, with each campaign set to be eleven missions long, and cutscenes interspersed throughout. What the runtime for each campaign will be remains to be seen, but speaking in an interview with Gameshedge, lead game designer Brandon Casteel promised “beefy” missions with “plenty of gameplay time per mission.” Missions will also be varied, and not all following the same structure, according to Casteel.

MULTIPLAYER

No RTS (especially one inspired by Command and Conquer) is complete without a full suite of multiplayer offerings, and sure enough, Tempest Rising will have plenty of modes on offer. It’s been confirmed that in addition to multiplayer skirmishes, custom matches and ranked multiplayer matches will also be available.

FACTIONS

Two factions will be at the heart of Tempest Rising’s story with the Tempest Dynasty and the Global Defense Force, each starring in their own campaign. In multiplayer, meanwhile, players will also have a third faction to play as in the form of the Veti, an ancient and technologically advanced alien race. Each faction will bring their own unique roster of units, systems, and play styles. The Veti, however, will not be available at launch. Exactly when the third faction will become available is currently not known.

GLOBAL DEFENSE FORCE

In what’s left of the world in Tempest Rising’s universe, the Global Defense Force (or the GDF) is the largest military on the planet. A coalition of the militaries of the United States, Canada, and Western European nations, the GDF specializes in technological advancements, scientific research, space exploration, surveillance, and intelligence warfare. In gameplay, the GDF will priorizite precision offense and high mobility- though heavy weaponry will also be an option should it become necessary.

TEMPEST DYNASTY

Where much of the western half of Earth formed the GDF following World War 3, several Eastern European and Asian nations came together to become the Tempest Dynasty. With man of the dynasty’s former nations having suffered heavy irradiation, it also finds itself with large quantities of Tempest within its borders, which is now very much to their advantage. Armed with Tempest, in gameplay, the faction is able to use high-energy systems, units, and buildings to its advantage.

SPECIALISTS

As you’d expect, each faction in Tempest Rising will also feature its own roster of exclusive, higher-powered units touting unique abilities. The GDF, for instance, will have the drone assassin Comandante Vasco Delgado, the riot medic Captain Dylan Tremblay, the comms officer Captain Ed Hayes, and the sniper Captain Bronagh Cregan. The Tempest Dynasty, on the other hand, will have, among others, the physicist Dr. Aigul Yusupova, the machinist Sergeant Srdjan Radojević, the anti-vehicle sniper Bataar Nergüi, and combat support specialist Mykyta Moroz.

SUPPORT POWERS

Each faction in Tempest Rising will also have its own set of support powers, which will supposedly work not too differently from how super weapons did in Command and Conquer games. The GDF’s support powers will let you unleash air strikes, deploy troop carriers loaded with peacekeeping forces, use communication jammers, and more. On the other hand, the Tempest Dynasty’s support powers will let you fire extremely volatile Tempest missiles, seed battlefields with dangerous mines, deliver automated infirmary pods on the battlefield, and more.

SPECIALIST MISSIONS

Similar to Commando missions in Command and Conquer games, Tempest Rising’s campaigns will also feature missions where players will be playing only as a Specialist unit. How many of these we can expect is unknown, but speaking in the aforementioned Gameshedge interview, lead game designer Brandon Casteel confirmed that Specialist-only missions will indeed be featured.

NO NAVAL BATTLES

Naval battles were often a big part of the gameplay loop in Command and Conquer titles, but this is one area where Tempest Rising is deviating from its biggest inspiration. Speaking with Gameshedge, Casteel explained that the complexity that naval gameplay would have added to the experience led to the developers’ decision to not have it be in the game at all. Whether or not it will be added in at some point in the future remains to be seen.

“Naval as a gestalt concept introduces a tremendous amount of complexity to a game,” Casteel said. “You have to worry about what happens on the coastline, about how air units and ground units engage with naval units; you will have to figure out much more complex map design challenges, and it will decrease the number of units you will be able to produce for air and ground as well. I feel like it’s tricky enough to worry about getting the basics of an RTS right,  and we would have done ourselves no favors trying to figure out the very complex challenges inherent in adding a naval layer to the game. Never say never, but I think a lot of people drastically underestimate how hard it is to make naval work. Very, very few games have done it right.”

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Recommended system requirements for Tempest Rising haven’t yet been revealed, however, its minimum requirements are available, and thankfully, they’re not terribly demanding. To be able to run the game, you’ll need at least either an i5-7400 or a Ryzen 5 1600, along with either a GeForce GTX 1060 3 or a Radeon RX 580, and about 30 GB of free storage space.