This is the best RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate 3 — here's why

Freehold Games' Caves of Qud ($30) is a lo-fi RPG that came out late last year after 15+ years in development, and it's easily one of the most interesting games I've played in decades.

It's a game with graphics that look very simplistic, but don't let 'em fool you: Caves of Qud is full of complicated systems and intriguing characters.

The game just launched on Steam in December with help from publisher Kitfox Games, and I've already clocked over 40 hours plumbing its depths. That's nowhere near the 300+ hours I've ended up sinking into Baldur's Gate 3 since it debuted in 2023, but it's a lot more than I ever expected to spend playing Caves of Qud.

The game has been available for play in some form since 2010, but despite multiple attempts to jump in after hearing great things about it I never managed to "get" why so many people love Qud. A lot of that has to do with the ways in which Caves of Qud differs from most most modern games.

For starters, it has a stripped-down 2D interface featuring low-resolution sprites that move, turn by turn, across a sea of tiles.

It bears a striking resemblance to games like Dwarf Fortress and NetHack, which makes sense given that Qud's developers cite Dwarf Fortress as a huge inspiration. But if you can get to grips with the interface and parse the graphics, there's a deep well of weirdness lying beneath the surface of Qud that's unlike anything I've ever seen in another game.

What the game lacks in graphical complexity it more than makes up in imagination, using colored text and colorful language to give you the feeling you're exploring a vast expanse covered in the ruins of ancient civilizations.

It's not just the illusion of history though: Qud actually generates new histories for the world every time you start a new game, using a mix of pre-written and algorithmically-generated details to fill in what happened, which factions like and dislike each other and why.

In practice, that means you can wander into a cave, get attacked by a mutated sentient centipede with its own generated name, history and pack of cronies (cronipedes?), then vanquish the creature and find out a sect of tech-worshippers half a world away now like you better because the sentient centipede once defiled their temple.

Stories like that play out all the time in Caves of Qud, and that constant drip feed of surprises makes it easily the best RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate 3 launched back in 2023. But while developer Larian made Baldur's Gate 3 feel like a living, breathing world by cramming it full of expensive, lavishly animated and acted characters, Caves of Qud accomplishes much the same thing with words, code and creativity.

I don't know if I'll spend half as much time plumbing the depths of Qud as I did exploring the nooks and crannies of Baldur's Gate, but I'm on track and not looking back.

I'd love for more people to play and enjoy Caves of Qud, but I know there's a real learning curve to the game and the interface can be a serious barrier to entry. With that in mind, here's a quick guide to getting started without making the mistakes I did my first time playing.

Getting started in Caves of Qud

Here's a few basics I wish I knew before starting to explore Caves of Qud, because they would have saved me hours of headaches and frustration.

• Play the tutorial: I know, I know, lots of people feel like tutorials in games are a waste of time. I typically skip the tutorial too, but when I did that my first time out with Caves of Qud I quickly got frustrated by the interface and gave up.
  Basic tasks like going up and down stairs or moving between villages require you to know which keys to press, and the easiest way to learn that is to play through the Caves of Qud tutorial, which to its credit is informative and succinct.
• There's no saving in Classic mode: There is no way to save in "Classic" mode except by exiting the game. When your character dies they're gone for good, so don't get attached to your characters.
  If you want death to be reversible, play in Roleplay or Wander mode, which both let you set a checkpoint at settlements and then revert to that checkpoint if you die.
• Mutated humans are easier to play than True Kin: Each time you start a Caves of Qud run you choose between creating a mutated person or an unmutated "True Kin" human. Both are viable, but mutations give you a wide variety of abilities from the beginning of the game that make mutated humans easy to start with.
  In contrast, True Kin start with no mutations but higher starting stats and chiefly advance their abilities by installing implants and using other technology. So while both are fun to play, in my experience True Kin advance in power in spurts, whereas mutated humans get new powers on a semi-regular basis and thus can feel more durable and easier to play.

Most importantly though, I recommend you experiment with everything in Caves of Qud. Once you get the hang of navigating the world, examining strange objects and interacting with creatures you're 90% of the way there, and the rest is just playing around with game systems to see what happens.

That's what really makes this the best game of 2024 for me: Caves of Qud's deep interlocking systems. This game not only generates eons of surreal history every time you start a new run, it attempts to accurately model everything from temperature to wall thickness.

So if you get trapped by a murderous robot deep underground you could use your mutated claws to burrow through a wall and escape, for example, or use your mind powers to rip open a spacetime vortex, then leap into it and appear in a random location halfway around the world.

It's a gem of an indie game that generates stories unlike anything else you'll ever play, and it's easily my favorite RPG in years.

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