Dark Age: Mandragora—Whispers of the Witch Tree

Enter a dark and beautiful soulslike Metroidvania RPG side-scroller.

‣ Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree
From: Primal Game Studio, Knights Peak
Platforms: PC
Release: 17 April 2024
Genre: Metroidvania RPG
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

[This edition of AIIG was written by contributor Gonçalo Santos! He didn’t want to add any promo information just yet, but you can look him up on his Substack profile.]

Inquisitor, the King Priest needs you to cleanse the grounds of Faelduum. Use your powers to fight off evil, both in human form and otherwise, while engaging in an inner struggle regarding your faith.

In Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, you start your journey as an Inquisitor trying to save a kingdom “on the edge of ruin”. But are you fighting for the theocratic king or for something else?

Mandragora fits perfectly into a genre that will be familiar to most readers: a soulslike metroidvania. The game features difficult, slow, and weighty combat. Mistakes are punished, and fighting groups of enemies can be a headache for novice players. But the challenge is part of the thrill.

Progressing through the maps requires careful exploration, and finding hidden paths is rewarding. Those rewards often come in the form of 'souls,' which, in classic soul-like fashion, can be used both as currency and as a levelling tool.

You’ll frequently need to opt for one or the other, because Mandragora is also a fully-fledged RPG, complete with levelling, equipment to add buffs, and expansive talent trees that change considerably depending on which class you’ve chosen.

Speaking of which, Mandragora’s full game has six classes:

• Vanguard

• Flameweaver

• Spellbinder

• Nightshade

• Wyldwarden

• Vindicator

In the demo, only half of them were available, so those are the ones I’ll go into here.

Vanguards are your run-of-the-mill, tankier fighters. They wield a sword and shield and are limited to physical damage only. With the biggest health pool, they’re the more forgivable class to choose—not forcing a defensive playstyle, they can thrive as two-handed wielding barbarians.

Spellbinders are mages, but not in the traditional sense. These magically attuned Inquisitors excel at range. Although they lack physical damage entirely, wielding magic swords allows them to be dangerous melee combatants too. Their direct downsides are lower stamina, health, and carrying capacity.

Straddling between these two, the Nightshade isthe closest thing to a rogue. Impressively versatile, they carry a bit of prowess in all stats, boast the biggest stamina bar, excel in melee combat, and can use a few ranged tools to compensate for their inherent squishiness.

Built in Unreal Engine 5, Mandragora has a uniquely beautiful art style frequently reminiscent of a painting. The talented artists fully utilised the side-scrolling setting to fill the screen with as many layers as harmoniously as possible, creating rich backdrops and eerie foreground objects.

The world of Faelduum is one of dreary and grim dark age turmoil. Yet, it's also alive with subtle movement and detail. Trees lightly react to the wind, individual leaves fly throughout the area, sewage water pours to the ground and torches flicker. The world's people and creatures are rendered with equally stunning detail and care.

📽 Demo Snapshot: Time to clean the ruins

Beautifully complementing the picture is the carefully crafted soundscape. For the majority of your journey, an eerie ambiance paired with ominous sounds— often pouring rain or creaking wood—transmits a sense of danger and urgency, adding to the eerie but painted landscape. Wolves growl powerfully, rats squeak at unnaturally high volumes due to their enlarged bodies, and humans vocally threaten you throughout fights.

Mandragora will give you some breaks from this soundscape when you reach safe areas, identified with a relaxing song playing on top of a much more discreet, natural ambiance. In tandem, these areas are filled with light, frequently emanating colours that range from orange to white, an obvious contrast to the dark blues and greys that dominate the rest of the experience.

The game's characters also make full use of the beautiful artwork and sounds. They are rendered in crisp painted portraits full of subtle animations, and professional voice actors give life to their words. These are welcome because, as an RPG, you spend a reasonable amount of time talking to characters or interacting with shop stewards.

Mandragora's demo reveals a lush and detailed game that blends soulslike action with Metroidvania exploration and elaborate RPG elements, a prelude to Primal Game Studio's 40+ hour saga. The only question is, are you up to the challenge?

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree releases on 17 April 2025 on Steam.

---

Explore The Game with YouTube Chapters:

• 📽 00:31 Choosing a class

• 📽 01:15 The story of an inquisitor

• 📽 02:22 The king is angry

• 📽 05:36 The city lives in fear

• 📽 07:20 A combat tutorial

• 📽 10:57 Outside the city

• 📽 12:33 Helping Ulfar

• 📽 15:15 That's a big wolf...

• 📽 18:06 To the old ruins

• 📽 21:55 Levelling up

• 📽 24:55 On the hunter's trail

• 📽 26:50 A little platforming

• 📽 29:14 The bandits want trouble

• 📽 36:25 Into the sewers

• 📽 38:18 A rat boss

• 📽 47:45 Buying from a trader

• 📽 52:30 Cleaning Wickham's ruins

• 📽 1:03:42 Off to Gravseep Swamp

• 📽 1:06:44 Giant tentacles!

• 📽 1:11:35 A mysterious prisoner

• 📽 1:19:50 That's a big monster

• 📽 1:22:53 Let's try that again

• 📽 1:24:26 Third time's the charm

• 📽 1:25:32 Fourth time's the charm

---

Thanks for reading Adventures in Indie Gaming! Subscribe to receive new posts.