I am neither a wrestler nor a wrestling fan. I have never attended a cage fight or hit somebody with a folding chair. I have never had a blowoff or no-sold somebody’s attempt to lay the smackdown on my randy ass. I cannot smell what the Rock is cooking. I cannot. Nonetheless, I think a Hades-style roguelite built around grappling sounds like a fun time, especially when it’s set in a cursed Byzantine citadel. This is Realm Of Fame from Black Cube Games. Can you smell what the trailer is cooking?
“In this mystical roguelike, you play as Maj, a wandering soul driven by redemption and purpose,” explains the Steam page. “Master grapples, throws, and counters in battles where every encounter with twisted spirits and mythic heroes feels like an ancient duel of strength, wit, and resolve.”
The game’s combat certainly appears to lean into the wrasslin’ gimmick, though it’s just as defined by magic. When you do a groundpound (is this a “smackdown”? Sources cannot confirm at the time of writing) on a burly wolfman, it may send energy waves shooting out in all directions. Expect an “ever-shifting labyrinth of storms and enchanted valleys”, too, with boss fights in which you go up against corrupted classical celebs such as Hercules. If it were Achilles, we could make a joke about turning heel.
Maj’s unlockable moves have names like “falcon dive”, “slumber serenade” and “bubble suspension”, all of which sound far too lyrical for WWE. As for where he gets his sorcerous buffness, it comes from “a mystical force called the Lover’s Wind”. Unfortunately, on acquiring the Lover’s Wind, Maj accidentally unleashed a countervailing Evil Wind, which is the source of the world’s corruption. Is this what the Rock was cooking? I think the Rock needs to lay off the sprouts for a while.
I realise I’m leaning on the WWE gags here, but lobbing dudes around like sacks of potatoes is a pastime that stretches far beyond WWE. Amongst other things, I’ve just learned that “wrassling” is actually a Cornish profession. Are there any other athletic precedents and traditions I should be invoking here? The developers are also the creators of The Tale Of Bistun, which is based on an epic Persian romantic poem from the 12th century, “Khosrow and Shirin”.
