EREWHON is a single-player RPG set in a world of intersecting investigations and eldritch horror. Players take on the role of the Wandering Psyche, who awakens in the Parlor of the Weatherleigh Hotel and selects from available vessels such as the Academic, the Detective, the Occultist, or the Rogue. These choices place the character in 1982, where events unfold across multiple linked stories that players can revisit through repeated deaths and resurrections.
Gameplay
The core loop centers on exploration of detailed environments including an insane asylum, a cemetery, and a hotel that shifts across time. Combat involves weapons, skills, and spells against a range of threats, with some encounters offering non-combat options. Character progression uses attribute points across six stats, class skills unlocked in chosen order, and equipment ranging from melee weapons and firearms to enchanted items and artifacts. Crafting draws from found materials to create items like molotov cocktails or alchemical mixtures. Sanity serves as a persistent resource that declines from horrific events or the use of powerful Mythos spells and summoned entities, carrying over between vessel changes and potentially ending the game if it reaches zero. Health, power, and sanity recover through consumables such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, medical supplies, and food, each with trade-offs that require careful management.
Game Modes
EREWHON structures its content as interlocking campaigns rather than separate modes. Each 10 to 12 hour investigation features multiple endings determined by player choices. Investigation A follows the Academic assisting detectives in locating missing actresses after a massacre at a playwright's premiere, leading to Brookhaven State Mental Hospital, while the Occultist seeks a forbidden text connected to the same events. Investigation B places the Detective on the trail of serial killings in New York that lead to Stanton Street Cemetery and its controlling family, with the Rogue initially suspected and drawn into an uneasy alliance. Progress through deaths allows players to switch vessels and explore the same events from alternate perspectives, unlocking new encounters, items, and story branches in a meta-campaign.
Atmosphere and Progression
Environments receive emphasis through lighting, ambient sound, and a soundtrack that mixes 1980s dark synthwave, psychedelic folk rock, and 1920s blues and jazz. Foes include both human and unnatural threats that challenge both physical survival and mental stability. Progression expands through levels, attribute customization, skill selection, and access to arcane powers that come at the cost of sanity. The system encourages repeated playthroughs to uncover how choices in one vessel affect opportunities in others.
Is It Worth Playing?
EREWHON appeals to players who enjoy single-player RPGs with strong narrative branching, resource management, and horror themes drawn from the Cthulhu Mythos and related works. The alpha release includes substantial content across the Academic and Occultist campaigns plus portions of the others, along with the connecting elements of the meta-campaign. Reception on its distribution platform stands at a perfect score from early feedback, though the project remains in active development. Those drawn to turn-based combat, sanity mechanics, and stories that reward perspective shifts will find the structure distinctive. Availability centers on the current build for those comfortable with ongoing updates.
