Barony

Barony does not gently welcome you into its dungeon. It throws you through the front door, hands you a rusty weapon, whispers “permadeath,” and then watches with academic interest as a skeleton, a trap, or your own panic ends your promising career in under five minutes.

This is a first-person roguelike dungeon crawler from Turning Wheel LLC, originally released on 23 June 2015, and it has aged into one of those indie games that quietly refuses to die—mainly because the players keep dying first. [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/371970/Barony/) describes it as a first-person roguelike with cooperative play, where you adventure alone or gather a party to face brutal dungeons and lift the curse of the evil lich Baron Herx. That is the plot. The experience is mostly “open door, regret door, repeat.”

The main appeal is how proudly old-school Barony is. It is inspired by classics like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Daggerfall, and it shows. This is not a modern handholding RPG where the tutorial NPC says, “Great job opening your inventory!” Barony expects you to learn by poking things, testing systems, and occasionally discovering that the thing you poked was cursed, explosive, poisonous, or all three. The dungeons are cryptic, randomized, full of vicious monsters and deadly traps, but also packed with loot, spells, magical artifacts, and weird gear that can completely change how a run plays.

The class variety is a big part of the replay value. The base game features 13 classes, ranging from familiar warrior/wizard/rogue types to stranger options like sexton, joker, and arcanist. That already gives you a lot of different ways to embarrass yourself underground. Then the DLCs add even more alternate classes and playable monster races, with packs like Myths & Outcasts, Legends & Pariahs, and Deserters & Disciples expanding the playstyle buffet.

Co-op is where Barony becomes truly special. It supports 1–4 players, including online play and crossplay with other platforms, which is wonderful because nothing says friendship like accidentally triggering a trap, blaming the wizard, and then watching everyone die in a corridor because nobody brought enough food. The game even lets dead players continue as ghosts with spooky powers, meaning your failure can remain socially active. That is genuinely clever: instead of forcing dead teammates to sit there like sad spectators, Barony lets them haunt or help the party after death.

The combat and exploration are tense because everything matters. Hunger, positioning, enemy behavior, gear durability, magic, traps, stats, and resource management all pile up into a constant state of low-level panic. You are never just “walking through a dungeon.” You are managing a fragile expedition of idiots with torches. Sometimes the idiot is you. Usually the idiot is you.

Visually, Barony is deliberately chunky and retro. It will not win over players who need glossy modern fantasy graphics, but the style works because it is readable, charming, and weirdly expressive. The blocky look gives enemies and environments a toybox quality, which makes the sudden brutality even funnier. It looks like a cute dungeon diorama until something removes half your health and teaches you humility.

The honest downside is that Barony can be harsh and opaque. New players may bounce off the difficulty, the old-school interface feel, and the sheer number of systems that are happy to punish ignorance. The humor of “learning through death” only works if you are willing to laugh while the dungeon repeatedly puts your confidence in a bin. It is also not a cinematic story RPG; the story is mostly there to justify the descent into chaos. The real narrative is the one your party creates when the healer gets lost, the rogue steals something cursed, and the warrior confidently fights the wrong enemy.

But that is exactly why Barony works. It has depth, replayability, co-op chaos, and a strong community-supported life long after launch. Steam currently shows Very Positive recent and overall user reviews, with around 86% positive recent reviews and 91% positive overall from more than 12,000 reviews, which feels earned for a game this punishing and beloved.

Graphics:* 78%
Sound:* 80%
Gameplay:* 89%
Fun:* 91%

Overall score: 84.5%

Verdict: A brutal, funny, highly replayable first-person roguelike dungeon crawler that becomes even better with friends. Barony is not smooth, soft, or forgiving—but if you like old-school dungeon crawling, chaotic co-op, permadeath, strange classes, and the constant possibility of dying because someone opened the wrong door, this is an indie classic with teeth.