PENITENT. UNBOWED. MARKED.
A top-down action RPG set in a parish that raised its own dead. Fight from the pilgrims' fire to the cathedral where the dead answer to the Mark.
Free demo in Steam Next Fest, October 19 to 26
Dreadmark is an action RPG in the old tradition. You fight in real time, pick up what the dead drop, and keep rebuilding your character until it can survive the next fight. It is hard on purpose. On hardcore a death is permanent, and the ladder remembers it.
Single player · Windows PC · Early Access on Steam in Q2 2027
The game opens with a chronicler's tale, told over six paintings. This is how it starts.
Two classes to start, each with three skill trees of its own. More join after launch.
Sword and shield, up close
He wins fights by standing in them. Landing hits and blocking them builds Wrath, which cools once the fighting stops. Near the top it runs white-hot and his heaviest blows land harder. He spends it on cleaves, smites and thrown censers, and his consecrated ground heals him while he holds it.
Curses and rot, at a distance
She keeps her distance and lets disease do the work. Poison and rot spread from body to body, the damage feeds her Malice, and she spends it to burst everything she has infected at once.
Heavy hitters and bosses wind up before they strike, and the ground shows where the blow will land. Rangers show their aim as a line that follows you until they let go. Step out of it, roll through it, or take it on the shield and punish the recovery. One bad read against the big ones can end a hardcore run.
Items roll their affixes from where they dropped, so the deeper you go the better they get. Orbs reroll and upgrade what you find. The Dread Sigil can push an item past anything it could roll on its own, or ruin it, and each item only takes the mark once.
Every skill takes a rune, and the good ones change what the skill does. A censer whose weaker burst leaves everything it hits burning. A blight that jumps to the next body when its host dies. Swap them whenever you like.
Every window is cut from the same dark iron, from the hotbar to the talent trees. Life and your class resource sit in glass globes, and the liquid inside them moves. When the Templar's Wrath runs white-hot, his globe glows with it. The hotbar can sit along the bottom of the screen or hang under your character's feet.
Beat the Dark Lord and he leaves a Dread Map behind. Open it at the stone frame in camp, and the game builds a stretch of parish road for that map out of pieces we made. It picks which pieces to use and where each one goes, so every map you open is a road you have not walked. Die in it and walk back in, and the same road is waiting.
You play alone, inside a world that is shared. Live ladders rank Self-Found and Account-Found characters on boards of their own, the Reckoning times a new Self-Found character's run to the Dark Lord, and fallen hardcore characters stay on the board as ghosts you can inspect, gear and all.
STEAM NEXT FEST · OCTOBER 19 TO 26
Both classes, the whole road from the pilgrims' camp to the Cathedral, and the Dark Lord waiting at the end of it. After him come the Dread Maps, each one a fresh road laid out by the game. Wishlist the game and Steam will tell you the moment the demo opens.
Each step goes one level deeper. The dates are targets, and the devlog says so when one moves.
Between the milestones, you suggest things on Discord, and the popular ideas usually ship within days.
Bug reports and suggestions go straight to the people making the game. The ideas that get votes usually ship within days.
Join the DiscordGenerated from the game's own data, so every affix, base, orb and unique is listed with the numbers the game actually uses.
Open the wikiThe Eternals rank the highest levels, Self-Found and Account-Found apart. The Reckoning times a fresh Self-Found character's run to the Dark Lord. Both update live.
See the ladder
