The Thaumaturge is Fool’s Theory’s isometric, turn-based combat RPG, set in an alternative 1905’s Warsaw under rule by imperial Russian tsardom. With Fool’s Theory set to remake CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher (2007) on the Unreal Engine 5, there have been high expectations for The Thaumaturge, the studio’s second game. I’m five hours into The Thaumaturge, and here is my impression of the game so far.
We play as Wiktor Szulski, a thaumaturge – someone who possesses Perception which allows them to read other people’s thoughts, emotions, actions and words by examining items linked to them. Through this ability, thaumaturges are also able to identify when a person has been possessed by a Salutor, an entity that feeds off their flaws.
The first thing that hit me when I booted up The Thaumaturge was the gorgeous soundtrack by Agnieszka Wlazły and Sebastian Syczyński. No matter how much frustration is arising from the turn-based combat system, the music always has me tapping my feet. It reminds me very much of the music from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with slavic-styles in there and vocalist chants and whisperes. If this keeps up then The Thaumaturge will easily have one of my favourite soundtracks of 2024.
Unfortunately, the other thing that first hit me when I started The Thaumaturge was the voice acting. Despite being set in Warsaw and developed by a Polish studio, The Thaumaturge only has English voice acting, and it isn’t great. Wiktor’s accent is constantly flittering between upper class English to Eastern European and a lot of sentences sound awkwardly phrased. This made a lot of the dialogue feel disjointed and there was no flow in what the characters were saying. I really wish there was an option to switch the voice acting to the native language of where the game is set.
However, I wouldn’t entirely blame this on the cast, as there were plenty of lines in the dialogue that felt unnatural – especially upon greeting certain NPCs for the first time who will blurt out the most personal questions or comments about your physical appearance as though they are children with no filter over what they have to say.
In fact, I’m currently finding that the poor voice acting and dialogue is affecting how much I like Wiktor, as it’s incredibly difficult to bond with this character when what he’s saying sounds so robotic. Despite this, there are certain aspects to Wiktor which I do like – for one, the game makes it clear from the get-go that Wiktor is not without his flaws. In fact, his main one which links him with his starting Salutor, Upyr, is Pride. So far, there have also been one or two instances where Wiktor has made a mistake in a side quest, for which he amicably apologises for. Wiktor is not without his flaws and he deals with them well.
The Thaumaturge’s story revolves around Wiktor’s abilities and his objective of taming more Salutor’s to grow more powerful. Once a Salutor is captured, you can then use its abilities to your advantage. So far, I have tamed three Salutor’s though there are optional ones in side quests too which I’m sure I’ve missed. To capture a Salutor, Wiktor will often encounter a quest where he senses a Salutor’s presence, and must find its host by picking out this person’s flaws on items around the area. These are my favourite quest types in The Thaumaturge as I find the investigation behind odd happenings in the area to be interesting and they’ve so far come with a few twists too. I hope we have more of these rather than an epic, overarching plot as I feel this is not the type of game for that.
On the visual side, like Wiktor, The Thaumaturge does have its flaws. General exploration with the isometric viewpoint looks stunning, the graphics are incredibly crisp and the environment is well-detailed with plenty of NPCs standing around making conversations that will give you context into the world or the current quest you’re completing. Unfortunately, when we enter cutscenes there is just one problem: no matter how great each scene looks, the NPCs have utterly soulless eyes. I don’t know how this has happened when the rest of The Thaumaturge looks so impressive, but Fool’s Theory has really failed to capture the life behind the eyes of its characters and it drastically effects cutscenes to the point where it’s difficult to focus on anything else. It’s such a shame as the rest of The Thaumaturge looks really stunning.
The Thaumaturge’s marketing describes its combat system as being unique. It’s still turn-based combat, but rather than each move being taken one after the other, this is stacked turn-based combat. When you start a fight, you will see your enemy’s upcoming moves and how much time it will take for them to prepare for this move. Your choice then is to either get in as many quick attacks as you and your Salutor can before the enemy makes their move, or risk taking longer to prepare a more aggressive attack. So far, I’m not a fan of the combat system. But as I’m only five hours into what seems to be a 20 plus hour game, I will wait to see if this grows on me before I fully judge it.
I’m hoping that as I progress through The Thaumaturge, the quests will remain similar rather than outreaching to a large plot – as the Scooby Doo-style investigations are where this game shines. And I’m also hoping the combat system becomes more complex as the difficulty rises, with the additional Salutors making it far more interesting too.
Jess is playing The Thaumaturge on PC with a review code.
