Absolum Features A Gorgeous Story And Flashy Combat To Keep You Coming Back Over And Over Again

Absolum is a new roguelite that merges upgrading characters, beat-em-up combos, and working through the world from left to right with your friends, with split pathways, quests, and the ultimate desire to make your way through the world of Talamh to protect the mages of the land.

The story of Absolum is set in a world that has been destroyed by a magical cataclysm. This has made not only your party of characters rebels against the law of the land, but has also led to the demonization, enslavement, and killing of magic users.

Armed with the power to be able to revive themselves, the rebels that you play as head out from the relative safety of their base to try to overthrow the Sun King and put an end to the needless bloodshed. The interesting part is that there are a number of ways to make your way to the Sun King.

Choose Your Adventuring Path

How this plays out in terms of gameplay is that every run, you'll start at the home base. Along the way, you'll come to a variety of different split paths. Do you head across the bridge, or underneath the bridge? Do you continue through the forest or climb up the castle battlements?

Each path you take will diverge and converge, giving you a chance to experience a different adventure, new locations, and different enemy types. Depending on what character you're playing, the path may favor you, or put you against enemies that are going to put you in a bind.

Playing as Karl, the dwarf armed with his fists and a magical blunderbuss, I found I had a lot of issues taking a stroll through the castle due to the number of soldiers with lances that had greater reach than I did. If I took a lower path through the forest, fighting goblins, I was able to combo them into oblivion.

You'll also get different quests during gameplay that offer you upgrades, but you've got to reach certain parts of the map. This is a fun and refreshing way to give a roguelite a goal that isn't just "beat the game" but to follow a specific path to get stronger for the next run.

The gameplay itself is exactly the level of quality you'd expect from Dotemu, with games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge and the upcoming Marvel Cosmic Invasion under their belt. Dash in, perform a combo, watch out for stage hazards, enemy projectiles, and telegraphed attacks to stay alive.

Expect to be playing this for a bit to make considerable progress, but while you're not progressing in the story, you'll be able to explore more of the world.

I Suck At Dodging In Absolum…

One aspect that I found challenging in combat, especially on some of the larger bosses, was getting out of the way. It might have just been that Karl is that mix of strong but slow, but there were a number of times that I felt I was stuck in a situation that I needed to take a hit in order to have the time to get close enough. This isn't even including some of the AoE or sweeping attacks that would get sent my way that I couldn't do anything about, regardless.

One of the most impressive aspects of Absolum is just how good it looks. The art style invoked to me the idea of classic Saturday morning cartoons like He-Man or Dungeons & Dragons, but with the high-quality polish of 2025.

Background elements tell a story of each of the regions you pass through, and the unique monster designs immediately let you know what you might be able to expect out of a foe before they even start trying to kill you.

For fans of side-scroller beat-em-ups there's no better company to be following nowadays than Dotemu, and Absolum is no different. While other big releases of theirs might pull you in with the strong IP that they're attached to, I recommend even further coming into Absolum just because of how unique the world and gameplay mechanics are. Better yet if you're able to bring a friend along to play with you.

Better yet, there's a demo currently available on Steam so you can check it out for yourself.

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Absolum was reviewed on PC via Steam with a copy provided by the Publisher over the course of 4 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.