Revenge of the Firstborn has two game modes: the classic campaign a la the Baldur’s Gates of the world, and a roguelike mode I’m calling The Endless Dungeon. This month, we’ll delve into the Endless Dungeon and talk about some of its features. Next month, we’ll talk a little bit about the campaign and the world it takes place in.
As mentioned above, The Endless Dungeon is a roguelike mode. This means there is minimal story and all of the elements of the world are randomly generated, from the loot and monsters to the layout of the dungeon itself. The Endless Dungeon is actually a set of three dungeons, each of increasing difficulty. The challenge is to survive all three, reach level 20 and defeat the final boss.
Going to See the Boss
Speaking of bosses, each of the dungeons ends with the opportunity to fight a boss. These are unique set pieces ranging from a fight against a young dragon to a fight against the most feared devil in the game – a pit fiend. These fights represent high risk, high reward encounters where you must weigh the risk of gaining a great item versus permadeath for your party if none of them makes it back alive.
To keep things interesting, each level of the dungeon has a chance to spawn a mini-boss, a higher-level encounter that will challenge the party more than the other monsters on the given level and grant higher level loot than the rest of the dungeon if the party defeats it.
We're on a Mission...
In addition to that, each dungeon level also has a chance to spawn a mini-quest, which is an area branching off the main dungeon with a higher challenge and better rewards. The quests are brief in nature and consist of tracking down a particular monster, rescuing a captive or retrieving an item.
The Whole Nine Yards
While the level cap for the main campaign is not yet determined, the level cap for the Endless Dungeon is 20, meaning you can experience the full array of over 275 spells and over 125 monsters. The Endless Dungeon is the perfect place for build testing, trying out new classes or just hunting and killing monsters.
Check back next month for some early details about the campaign world and story for Revenge of the Firstborn!