▶ TL;DRRunegate takes the scrappy 2018 original and rebuilds it the way its dwarves rebuild their town: bigger, sturdier and easier to love. The combat never quite matches the rest of the package, but the explore-rescue-rebuild loop carried me happily through twenty hours. For 25 bucks with a free demo, go play the thing.

I have a soft spot for games that understand the fantasy of rebuilding. Not ruling, not conquering: rebuilding. Regions of Ruin: Runegate, from Melbourne's own Gameclaw Studio and publisher Raw Fury, is that fantasy in side-scrolling pixel form, and it quietly ate a string of my evenings. I went in expecting a modest sequel to a scrappy 2018 indie. I came out twenty hours later with a thriving dwarven town and strong opinions about crossbow builds.

A Dwarf, a Ruin and a Door Between Worlds

The setup is brutal and quick: a goblin ambush flattens your settlement, your kin are dragged off in chains, and you are left standing in the wreckage with an axe and a grudge. Salvation comes through the runegates, ancient dwarven portals connecting parallel worlds. Each expedition through a gate takes you into new regions to explore, kin to rescue and resources to haul home, and the mystery of who built the gates and why they were sealed gives the wandering a proper spine. It is a cleaner, better-told story than the original ever managed, with side stories tied to individual factions doing a lot of the character work.

The runegates themselves are the game's best visual trick. Screenshot: Gameclaw Studio.
The runegates themselves are the game's best visual trick. Screenshot: Gameclaw Studio.

+ PROS

  • Gorgeous, lovingly detailed pixel art
  • The rescue-a-dwarf settlement loop is compulsive
  • Real weapon variety backed by deep skill trees
  • Aussie-made, with a free demo on Steam

− CONS

  • Melee targeting feels imprecise
  • Combat gets repetitive in the back half
  • Main story is over quickly if you rush it
  • Occasional frame dips in crowded fights

Fight Like You Mean It

Combat is directional hack-and-slash: light and heavy attacks, blocking, dashing, and facing that matters. The weapon variety genuinely changes how you play. I ran most of the game as a shield-wall bruiser, respecced into a crossbow build for a stretch, and flirted with a two-hander bleed-stacking tree that turns bosses into ticking clocks. The skill trees are deep enough to support all of it, which is more than I expected at this price.