- Publisher: 11 bit studios
- Release Date: Mar 4, 2024
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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Mar 8, 2024Only for story fans: The dark role-playing game scores with its strong setting and a decent plot. However, exploration and combat wear out quickly, and a lot of potential is wasted in detective work.
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Mar 8, 2024The Thaumaturge is a conflicting game. It beautifully depicts an alternative history and Warsaw in 1905. However, the main character is challenging to connect with, and his story feels a bit hastily put together. Despite this, individual stories offer quality entertainment and tough moral choices. The Salutors are excellently rendered graphically, and their abilities in combat are enjoyable. If only the combat itself were better balanced, and the encounters were designed to have some narrative sense. Nevertheless, the overall game is entertaining; you just need to overlook some imperfections.
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Mar 7, 2024The game welcomes you to historical Warsaw surrounded by esoteric beings. If you are not afraid of them, you can tame them. Expect a rich story and dialogue, but the combat won't be for everyone.
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Mar 5, 2024The Thaumaturge is a game of undeniable cultural value, and the opportunity to explore early 20th century Warsaw (realistic, but enriched with fantastic elements) alone made it worth my time. I wish I could tell you that the rest of the game – the story, the mechanics – is on par with the unique setting, but sadly, that’s not the case, as we’ve already seen all of it done much better elsewhere.
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Mar 4, 2024With weak exploration which tends towards being more tedious, and even exhausting, combat which trips over itself to constantly interrupt the player, and an overall feeling of awkwardness in the presentation, getting through The Thaumaturge's low moments can be a real struggle. However, on the other side is a compelling and interesting political slow burn which weaves the role of magic and Thaumaturgy into real historical scheming, even if that means the more interesting aspects of the world take a backseat. This is alongside an engaging core combat loop and some excellent creature designs. If you can stomach the slow start and are willing to play into the game's more obtuse aspects, particularly the walls of emotive text, The Thaumaturge is sure to be another exciting CRPG for you.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge combines an unusual setting in 20th century Poland with tactical turn-based battles and a supernatural plot revolving around hidden demons, sometimes exciting decisions and tricky (social) problems. However, the plot and characters tend to get in their own way and stumble over the stiff presentation.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge’s biggest problems are a result of trying to do so many different things at once. It’s a juggling act on the best of days, and if you’re a working-class person in 1900s Poland you aren’t having a bunch of great days. Not consistently, anyway. This is a deeply interesting game with a lot of cool imagery, historical storytelling hooks and complex systems that are a blast to engage with. There are a ton of swings, and not every one is a hit. Sometimes the voice acting is wacky, the protagonist feels underdeveloped, and combat can be annoying and burdensome. But I also accidentally stayed up way past my adult, parent bedtime on multiple nights playing it. I feel and probably look like Wiktor after catching a new Salutor, but it was worth it.
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Mar 11, 2024You’ve got an interesting setting, a ton of material, all kinds of ideas, and a studio that clearly knows what it’s doing. That all of that got combined into something as forgettable as this is pretty disappointing, and it makes it awfully easy to skip past this game without a second thought.
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Mar 25, 2024In my humble opinion, The Thaumaturge is a AAA Open World wanna-be game but with limitations. In other words, a gem that is shaped but lack of fine edges. The story and background settings are amazing. Yet, from the world structure to minor details. The limitation of the game has many, such as loading section in between of traveling, the map for exploration isn’t that big enough, the animation lack of details, etc. Despite of all the mentioned, the game still has something to offer. The story campaign, the thaumaturgy and detective investigation puzzles. The Thaumaturge still worth to play if you love any gameplay elements I just mentioned.
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Mar 17, 2024Lurking behind a dated exterior is a limited but sophisticated RPG with a unique setting and some memorable new ideas.
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Mar 6, 2024It's got heart and charme. But strange narrative pacing, patchy writing and weak presentation slow down this original and pretty RPG considerably. Fans of historical fantasy are treated to a pleasantly sinister Warsaw excursion with a clever combat system.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge shows plenty of promise, but lets itself down somewhat by failing to play to its strengths. Warsaw and its history and culture is a joy to experience when the game properly engages with it, but an insistent focus on a comparatively dull main story ultimately detracts from this for a fun yet frustrating experience.
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Mar 4, 2024What The Thaumaturge is, is as puzzling as its title. It's ostensibly an RPG, but with barebones RPG systems. It offers a large and rich world, but with nothing to do in it. It's supposed to last for twenty hours, but reveals all its cards after only two. Warsaw looks fantastic, with impressive atmosphere and detail - but it's the capital of boredom.
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Mar 4, 2024There’s a lot to appreciate about The Thaumaturge and that’s the stuff that will stick around. The weaknesses in the combat prevent some cool ideas from ever fully taking off. The rushed ending, whether the result of running out of time during development or an awkward playthrough, means the plot trips at the finishing line. But the uniqueness of the setting goes a long way toward making the game an interesting sell and the characters are fun to spend time with. So while far from perfect, there’s enough care in this project to make it a worthwhile visit.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge remains quite special overall. Hanging out with Rasputin, shmoozing with turn-of-the-century elites, and exploring some unexpected golem developments with beset Rabbis make for compelling content, even when a few lines in the script fail to land. Anyone taken in by this setting will genuinely want to play The Thaumaturge, and it joins several other recent experimental Slavic fantasy adventures that prove the countless avenues video games have yet to fully explore.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge is stuffed with ideas that sound great on paper, but the end result may have bitten off more than it can chew, as a lot of its concepts feel undercooked without delivering on their grandiose aims.
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Mar 8, 2024The Thaumaturge has a immensely interesting lore foundation but, alas, it never manages to build upon it. The plot development is highly derivative and just plain tiring and slow, while its combat system becomes repetitive quickly, despite having some nice ideas.
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Mar 4, 2024A historical supernatural role-player whose portrayal of Warsaw under Russian rule is highly compelling but where the combat and simplistic detective elements fail to engage.
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Mar 4, 2024The Thaumaturge is another example of a game whose developers had a good concept in hand, but failed to bring it to fruition. Diving into the world of semi-alternative Russian Empire and Polish nationalists turned out to be an entertaining (albeit specific) experience, which was spoiled by unsuccessful implementation of progression and battles, as well as poor work with Unreal Engine 5.
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| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
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Apr 24, 2024At times RPG and at times adventure game, The Thaumaturge is a blend of different flavors that offers a multilayered experience. Certainly a peculiar game that learned to love through its unique personality. [Recommended]
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Mar 7, 2024The Thaumaturge manages to do a deft job weaving between its supernatural story and the context of its historical setting. Wiktor is an outsider, and his detachment from society means that he can pick a side. I chose to have him back the unions and be a real comrade, but the game has tons of branches — including some where he falls to pride or commits sins that he cannot erase. These are the choices that make The Thaumaturge worth it, even when I’m annoyed by its technical shortcomings. Wiktor’s powers, detective skills, pride, and values are all things that can change the decisions at hand, and when I make a choice, it feels weighty. Since this is an RPG that lasts about 25 hours, I’m already getting amped up to see how a second run changes things. I have the feeling, though, that no matter how hard I try, something is going to go terribly wrong for someone.
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Mar 4, 2024But that's also precisely why The Thaumaturge ends up feeling like such an interesting, rough-hewn gem of a game. It's those wonky edges and the almost-but-not-quite-there presentation of them that gives it such a unique sense of character and personality, as well as the space and depth to debate its themes and ideas long after the credits have rolled. There's a lot to applaud and admire here, particularly in how each one of its systems feeds and complements the others, and it makes its own crop of flaws easy enough to forgive and overlook when considered as a whole. Pride may not be the most favourable trait in the world of The Thaumaturge, but given what Fool's Theory have managed to accomplish here, I'd say they've got plenty to be proud about.