The Stone of Madness Is Gearing Up To Be An Incredible Stealth Experience - Gamescom 2024

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At Gamescom, I had the pleasure of checking out three of Tripwire Interactive's upcoming games, and I walked away quite surprised. I took the appointment initially because of Killing Floor 3, and while I will have more to say on that soon, I was actually blown away by the other two games I got to see. Both of the titles piqued my interest in different ways, and now I just want to see more.

The first of the two is The Stone of Madness, a real-time stealth game from The Game Kitchen, who are also the same devs that created Blasphemous 1 and 2. Knowing this, I had some expectations for their new title, yet I was proven wrong. This is definitely a big change of pace for them, but the demo has shown me that they are more than up to the task and have injected some awesome new ideas in to keep things interesting.

The game feels similar to many other top-down stealth games, where you walk/sneak around in a top-down view and try to avoid enemies, hide behind objects, and complete objectives, but the way you interact with the puzzles and overall goal of the game make it feel so much more unique.

This starts with the fact that you control 5 characters, who are on the field with you. Each character has different abilities and specialties, so utilizing them all will be crucial to your goals. For example, if a guard is chasing you for whatever reason, you can control the character to run past one of your other characters, swap control, and use their ability to knock out the guard. Utilizing all of them and their different abilities to help each other out is going to be essential, and I love the emphasis on it.

The entire point of the game is to escape from a creepy 18th-Century Spanish Monastery that is keeping people there without allowing them to leave. Your overall goal is to escape the monastery, but this adds in another roguelike-esque gameplay mechanic that I adore. The game is split into two shifts: Day and Night. During the day, you will run around and explore the monastery and figure out more clues as to how to escape, and at night, you will go back to your cell, upgrade your character's abilities, and check out your gathered materials. It reminds me a little of The Escapists, which sees you working over multiple days to escape different prisons in a similar fashion, but I love the extra progression The Stone of Madness has.

I also love the aesthetic. The choice of a Spanish monastery in the 18th century makes for a creepy story and look, while the art just pops in a cartoony, detailed way. With this and the very intriguing story of what is actually happening at this monastery, I think this is going to be a real-time stealth game that shouldn't be missed. I know I will be watching out for it!

The Stone of Madness can be wishlisted on Steam now ahead of its 2025 release.

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