DaRmaZat Launching April 30, Moroi is the latest release from indie developer Violet Saint, published by Good Shepherd Entertainment. It presents itself as a grimdark fairytale drenched in blood, dread, and biting absurdist humor. Somewhere between a psychological horror trip and a surreal hack-and-slash adventure, Moroi throws you into the heart of the Cosmic Engine — a prison-like nightmare built to fracture your sanity, bury your past, and test your will to survive.
You awaken in Sky Prison, a grotesque labyrinth crawling with madness, magic, and malformed beings. Your name? Forgotten. Your crimes? Unforgivable. Your sentence? Eternal. The only way forward is through — slashing through waves of horrors, solving cryptic puzzles, and navigating ever-stranger environments as the line between delusion and reality collapses beneath your feet.
A World of Blood, Puzzles, and Paranoia
From the start, Moroi builds atmosphere through a nightmarish mishmash of art styles, shifting between torture chambers, talking trees, and haunted dolls with jarring abandon. The game never lets you settle, constantly dragging you from one grotesque set piece to another. While this visual chaos is creatively ambitious, it often comes at the cost of clarity. The isometric (though more accurately distant top-down) view combined with unclear interaction prompts can make it frustrating to parse what can be used, explored, or activated.
That said, Moroi’s puzzles do bring moments of clever interconnectivity. Tasks are often spelled out in your journal — a handy if overly generous design choice that leaves little room for getting stuck. Most progression involves locating NPCs or objects like switches, artifacts, or keycodes while poking around in the eerie corners of each zone. It’s mechanically straightforward: run into people or objects, check, listen, press the action button, move on. But despite this simplicity, the surreal world design keeps you guessing what grotesque surprise comes next.
Combat: Bloody, brutal… and broken
Combat in Moroi is where things start to unravel — and not in the thematic way the game intends. You begin with a basic sword, later gaining temporary access to other weapons like the ranged Fury minigun. But controls are awkward, with a nonstandard button layout that feels unintuitive on a controller. Worse, some weapons can’t be used in all situations, and while you can swap between them, it’s only possible under certain restrictions — which still limits tactical flexibility during combat.
Enemy encounters are chaotic, messy, and often unfair. There’s no enemy lock-on system, which becomes a serious issue in crowded battles. The player character’s orientation is hard to read, dodging feels inconsistent, and stamina or weapon cooldowns leave you useless in the middle of tense fights. The result? You’re often cornered with no way out — rolling, slashing, or shooting does nothing. It’s frustrating, especially as enemies keep flooding in, Survivors-style.
Yes, the gore is satisfyingly over-the-top, with finishing moves and blood spraying in every direction. Exploding demons, burning pentagrams, and waves of freakish creatures keep the energy high. But the lack of polish and control turns most encounters into button-mashing chaos rather than skill-based survival.
A Cast of the Absurd
Despite the shaky combat, Moroi keeps things interesting with its twisted sense of grimdark humor and grotesque supporting cast. Along your journey, you’ll meet a wizard with dubious motives, a soup-cooking witch using human remains, a spontaneously exploding pig, a cowardly prison cook hiding in a cabinet, and even a talking duck who gifts you his teeth as stat-boosting headgear. Yes — it’s that kind of game.
There’s a constant feeling that Moroi wants you to stop taking it seriously and simply go with the flow. It’s not subtle, it’s not particularly elegant, but it is committed to its own brand of grotesque weirdness.
Style over stability
Performance-wise, Moroi struggles. The game suffers from technical hiccups like stuttering, odd input bugs (weapons not firing until after death, for instance), and collision issues that leave you stuck or unable to react. There’s no manual save system, but fortunately, each room auto-saves progress to avoid excessive backtracking.
Musically, Moroi surprises. While combat is backed by heavy, chaotic metal riffs, downtime is filled with eerie ambient tracks that genuinely enhance the haunting atmosphere.
Final Thoughts
Moroi is a game that thrives on shock, style, and surreal storytelling — but falters when it comes to fundamental gameplay. The puzzles are intriguing, and the unsettling environments are creatively disturbing, but clunky combat, awkward controls, and unclear design hold the experience back. With more refinement and polish, this could be a decent game. As it stands, it’s a grim, bizarre trip best suited for players with a high tolerance for chaos, gore, and jank.
Additional Information
Release Date: April 30, 2025
Reviewed On: PC. Download code provided by the publisher and PR agency.
Developer: Violet Saint
Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment
Official Website: https://www.goodshepherd.games/games/moroi
Relevant links: Moroi on STEAM
