Bonfire Studios, founded by former World of Warcraft director Rob Pardo, recently revealed Arkheron, its debut project. While there’s still plenty more to learn about the game, including its release date, it’s already looking like it could be a treat for fans of games like Diablo and Overwatch, as it blends elements of both dungeon-crawler ARPGs and team-based competitive shooters.
Arkheron is named after its setting, a mysterious realm that channels both life and death. Players assume the role of an Echo, a nameless, faceless being that is essentially a ghost. During each match in Ascension Royale, Arkheron‘s primary game mode, fifteen teams of three Echoes each are tasked with climbing to the top floor of a supernatural tower that defies logic. Rather than starting each match with a particular loadout, players will have to collect weapons and armor during the match, and each piece of gear comes with unique properties and abilities. Completing a gear set transforms the player into an Eternal, an extra-powerful hero with their own unique moveset. Players have to defeat other teams to continue ascending through the tower, and thus, Arkheron straddles the ARPG and team shooter genres.
Arkheron recently had a PC-only playtest, letting Steam users take the game for a test drive from September 19 to September 22. Again, no release date has been announced, but it’s planned for a 2026 launch.
Arkheron Is Like an Isometric ARPG Team Shooter, With a Pinch of Roguelike Progression
Diablo-Like Combat Forms the Brunt of Arkheron's Gameplay
A cursory glance at Arkheron may lead one to believe that it is a spin-off or spiritual successor to the likes of Diablo and Path of Exile: it’s a top-down, gear-based action-RPG, after all. While there’s certainly truth to this (Pardo’s time at Blizzard may have informed some of these design elements), Arkheron is also doing quite a bit to distinguish itself from its ilk. The game’s PvP focus is a notable differentiating factor, but it’s not the only creative decision that sets it apart.
For one thing, Arkheron‘s isometric perspective doesn’t feature a fixed camera—something that already makes it a far cry from its top-down progenitors. Theoretically, this should make aiming, dodging, and positioning easier and more dynamic, as the game adopts traits from traditional third-person action titles.
If nothing else, this player-operated camera feature should make Arkheron look and feel radically different from games like Diablo.
More impactful than the camera is the game’s gear system, which seems to key into classic loot-based ARPG elements, but with crucial mitigating factors. Players can only equip four pieces of gear at a time (two weapons, two pieces of armor), and each piece of gear is tied to a powerful ability or buff.
Again, this is mostly theoretical until Arkheron launches in full, but such a truncation of typical gear-grind systems could make for a much more digestible, less overwhelming gameplay loop. This gear sandbox should synergize with Arkheron‘s roguelike mechanics; the Ascension Royale tower is randomized, offering a different layout and item distribution with each match.
Build-an-Overwatch-Hero
Since Arkheron features three-person PvP, a major test of its effectiveness will be how these teams of three are balanced. In a traditional team-based competitive game like Overwatch, this balance would come by way of different characters and classes: some characters are designed around support, others DPS, and so forth.
But Arkheron promises to put the power of balancing in the hands of the players, since they are the ones striving toward activating a bespoke Eternal build, or crafting their own unique builds with custom gear composition. Done right, this could make Arkheron a meaningful, powerful entry in the multiplayer space.