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SKALD: Against the Black Priory
game
•7/26/2026

SKALD: Against the Black Priory

byHigh North Studios AS
Steam
8.5
The Verdict
"SKALD succeeds because it knows exactly which game it's making. It is a story built on an RPG chassis, not the reverse, and every design decision — the brisk travel, the auto-resolve button, the twenty-hour runtime, the level cap you actually reach — flows from that priority. The combat is the price of admission rather than the attraction, and I'd rather have a developer who admits that than one who pads twelve hours of mediocre fights into the middle act." "What stays with you is the tone. The dread accumulating under Idra. The companions who make choices you don't like. The endings that feel earned rather than selected. That High North built this with a team you could fit in a small car makes it more impressive, not less — though the roughness in the inventory and systems layer betrays the same constraint." "This is a confident, cohesive, well-written RPG that respects both its ancestors and your calendar. It's not a genre-redefining work, and the tactical layer keeps it from the top tier. It's still one of the best retro-styled RPGs of its generation, and easily worth your twenty hours."

Gallery

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Key Features

Choice-Driven Narrative with Real Consequence: Branching dialogue and stat-gated skill checks don't just reflavor scenes — they reroute quests, change who lives, and reshape endings. The writing is the star, and it's genuinely good prose, not RPG-filler.
Authentic 8-Bit Presentation: Hand-drawn pixel art built on a Commodore 64-inspired palette, top-down across overworld, dungeon, and town, with an optional CRT filter. The art direction is disciplined enough to sell the illusion without the eye strain.
Multiple Encounter Resolutions: Fight it out on the tactical grid, talk your way through, sneak past, or hit auto-resolve. That last option is a quiet thesis statement about what the developer thinks the game is actually about.
Deep-Enough Character Building: A custom protagonist from a dozen classes, companions with their own agendas, and progression to level 20 across attributes, skills, spells, and gear.
The SKaDE Editor: A full campaign authoring toolkit with Mod.io integration, shipped in the box. Not a roadmap promise. Included.

The Good

Outstanding, distinctive writing with genuine branching consequence
Disciplined art direction that sells the C64 fantasy without eye strain
Cuts retro tedium while keeping retro texture — respects your time
SKaDE editor with Mod.io ships in the box, not on a roadmap
Runs on anything; near-zero technical friction

The Bad

Tactical combat is shallow and often too easy
Inventory and UI friction, especially in crafting and camp systems
Short at 15–25 hours; some will find that thin for the price
Crafting and cooking feel bolted on rather than essential
Enemy variety and AI rarely surprise

In-Depth Review

Bottom Line: SKALD is the rare retro homage that understands the difference between remembering an era and reanimating one — a beautifully written, genuinely branching cosmic-horror RPG whose tactical combat is the weakest thing in the box. Buy it for the prose, stay for the dread, and don't expect XCOM.

The Gameplay Loop

SKALD's loop is old-fashioned in the best sense: explore, talk, decide, occasionally bleed. You move a party across a top-down world, hoover up journals and lore fragments, and find that almost every location contains at least one decision with a fork in it. The quest log is functional and legible — a low bar that a shocking number of modern RPGs still trip over.

What separates SKALD from its inspirations is subtraction. The Gold Box games and early Ultima entries were magnificent, but they were also loaded with friction that had nothing to do with design intent and everything to do with 1988 hardware and 1988 assumptions: mapping on graph paper, random encounter grind, obscure syntax, save-scumming as a core mechanic. High North kept the texture and cut the tedium. Travel is brisk. Information is discoverable without a hint book. The game respects that your evening has a finite number of hours in it.

Where the Writing Earns It

The narrative is the reason to play, and it's worth being specific about why. SKALD's prose has voice — a dry, fatalistic register that treats violence as consequence rather than spectacle. Companions arrive with agendas that don't align neatly with yours. Skill checks fail, and failure produces story rather than a reload prompt. The cosmic-horror escalation is patient; it earns its reveals by grounding the first act in mundane, provincial politics before pulling the floor out.

Crucially, the branching is real. Players consistently report divergent quest resolutions and endings, and the game is short enough that a second run is an actual proposition rather than a theoretical one. That's a design synergy most 80-hour CRPGs can only fantasize about: brevity makes replayability viable.

The Combat Problem

Here's where I part company with the more effusive reviews. The turn-based grid combat is fine. It emphasizes positioning, morale, and area spells, and there are moments — a well-placed choke point, a morale break cascading through an enemy line — where it sings. But the tactical vocabulary is thin. Enemy variety is limited, the AI rarely surprises, and a meaningful chunk of encounters can be solved by pointing your frontline at the problem. A visible portion of the Steam audience calls it shallow or simply easy, and they're not wrong.

The auto-resolve button is the tell. Including it is a mature, player-respecting decision — it's excellent for cleanup fights and it keeps the pacing tight. But it's also the developer conceding that the combat is not always worth your time. That's an honest concession. It's still a concession. If you came looking for the tactical rigor of Battle Brothers or Wartales, calibrate down.

Interface and Friction

The UI is the other soft spot. Inventory management carries real onboarding friction — the systems layer of crafting, cooking, and camp preparation is more fiddly than it is rewarding, and it never quite integrates with the pace of the rest of the game. Menus are legible but clicky. Launch-window bugs were a legitimate complaint; most have since been patched, and the current build is stable in ordinary play. Crafting, ultimately, feels like a system included because RPGs have crafting, not because SKALD needed it.

Editorial Disclaimer

The reviews and scores on this site are based on our editorial team's independent analysis and personal opinions. While we strive for objectivity, gaming experiences can be subjective. We are not compensated by developers for these scores.