The Thaumaturge takes a unique combination of genre mechanics and combines them into an interesting gameplay and narrative that was fun and had me looking for more lore to build the story. In 1905 Warsaw, you take control of a thaumaturge, Wiktor Szulski, who struggles with his powers as a curse and a blessing. Throughout the story, you will use your thaumaturgy to discover secrets, figure out if people are lying or telling the truth, and as a powerful ally in turn-based combat.

Jumping straight into the game, you’re going to sit through a lot of cinematics, but I found these quite enjoyable and filled with rich lore and an interesting story. Though, for many, it may be tempting to skip through these. I implore you not to as you will be missing out on a key part of this experience. A story that you will have influence over depending on your choices and gameplay. I found it to be a mix of The Witcher 3’s narrative exploration and investigation and classic turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy. 

The combat in the beginning seemed a bit bland, though, as you progress through the story and level up your abilities, it becomes much more engaging. You can link together powerful combos using your tamed ethereal entities called salutors. Breaking your enemies’ focus unlocks even stronger abilities, and the combinations you can land are quite devastating, especially in the early battles with Russian soldiers.

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It was a fun jump into old-school turn-based RPGs and is done so very well. Picking your attacks, switching between enemies, and using the initiative order at the top of the screen better allows you to pace out your skills and even dodge incoming attacks.

Where the true strength of The Thaumaturge comes is in the investigative side of the gameplay, outside of battles. Using your abilities, you will make discoveries around the world which lead to your making suggestions and manipulating those around you for the answers. By simply investigating a note, you can often tell who it belonged to if you had spoken with them before. By tying together the clues you find, you can influence the story and go off your inferences to solve the puzzles.

This ties back to me telling you not to skip the cutscenes (which many of us have a bad habit of doing). You will want to know the story and where you fit into it. The Thaumaturge is in many ways a throwback to the RPGs we grew up with, while at the same time, adding unique elements like the investigative ability and it looks beautiful being created in Unreal Engine 5.

The Thaumaturge truly delivers with his turn-based combat and storytelling, though it does start off a bit slow. Simply running around for the first hour with a handful of fights against basic bad-guy soldiers was a little disheartening at first. As the story progresses, and you continue to get stronger, so does the narrative and it allows you to develop your character and react to situations differently. 

You can feel the passion and effort that went into this title, though, it’s clearly not without its faults. We will say that the good far outweighs the bad, and while it suffers from minor bugs and lacks polish, it does tell an interesting story, putting you in the driver’s seat to make decisions to feel like they matter. We would recommend The Thaumaturge, especially sitting at the $35 USD price tag. It’s half the cost of a triple-A title, but will definitely give you a decent amount of gameplay hours.