Verho: Curse of Faces

From just a brief watch of a trailer I knew I’d enjoy Verho: Curse of Faces. Its rich and varied landscapes, impeccable atmosphere and a delicious serving of cheese remind me of Elden Ring – the first Souls game I really played (sue me) – and while it’s not quite a soulslike it feels like one. Indeed Verho’s inspiration – King’s Field, From Software’s first game – is, I suppose, spiritually a Souls game. Not one I have played, but it’s clear what Verho is trying to achieve.

Leaning deep into the classic PlayStation or DOS-era 3D aesthetic, Verho: Curse of Faces starts thick with a very unplaystation exposition dump. My brain turned off and static hissed in its place- something something more mad mystical miscellany. While Verho’s plot isn’t breaking new ground, things are definitely happening. You pick a class and are guided through gameplay basics. Then you step boldly into and are subsequently trapped in the cursed land of Yariv, the path collapsed behind you. The land’s inhabitants either insist there’s no way back or that they will find a way back, and you forge ahead bravely into the new world to figure out which side of that fence you’ll end up on.

To begin you stumble your way through a relatively innocuous beginner area with ungodly overpowered bats, things to jump on, up and over and some mysteries to unravel. You’ll need to find keys and items to get you into, and equip you to explore caves. Levels loop around onto themselves and you can open up shortcuts – a semi consistent theme. You can jump and there’s a little verticality to the game. Not a lot, but just enough that you’ll need to jump around, jump up, and jump down to discover secrets. You can also attack from ladders, which – I’ll admit – has proven invaluable more than a couple of times in my tentative early efforts at beating (read: cheesing) some of the harder enemies.

You’ll cut a path through enemies with a mix of weapons and spells. Normal physical weapon attacks use a sort of golf-game like charged meter which you must aim to unleash exactly as it reaches full charge. Enemies are weak to specific weapon types and magic, so you’d better find and carry around a variety. There are, fortunately, plenty to find and thorough exploration – including bashing for illusory walls like you’re playing Wolfenstein 3D – yields due reward. Unfortunately the game’s inventory management is extremely crude, with a long, difficult-to-browse and difficult-to-parse list of items on the left and no immediate information on the relative type, power or particularities of weapons, no sorting, and no ability to sort or filter. It is, ironically, befitting the era Verho intends to invoke but, like Verho’s fluid and modern gameplay controls, is in desperate need of some mod-cons to make it more bearable.

Mouse input is supported- I opted to play Verho with a keyboard and mouse despite playing on the Steam Deck- but doesn’t make navigating the inventory much easier. Neither does the Steam Deck, to be fair, where the UI is a little on the small side. Weapons are sorted by type and strength so generally the further down the list the more powerful, but it’s easy to miss the transition from swords to axes and axes to maces and wonder why things don’t make sense. Some section headings, at the very least, or some way to filter by weapon type would be a huge boon.

Interactions with NPCs are fully voice acted, which was a surprising touch. The voice acting is very hit and miss with some tonal dissonance in places (welcome to Yariv, Tennessee), and a general sense of “we got some friends to do it.” That said it’s appreciated nonetheless, and most voice lines are fine, albeit a little drowned out by the music in places. Combined with the brooding soundtrack the voice acting helps keep you, for the most part, rooted in Verho’s world and I found it a very easy game to lose hours to.

In the early game Verho rarely left me with no idea where to go next, there was always an area I needed to explore which tied in to something else. Though now I think I’m approaching the mid to late game – despite a playtime of 14 hours I haven’t reached the end – I’m less sure of myself. A long, meandering expedition through unsettling, living mines lead me to a boss fight, and nonetheless I’m one item short of a set I need to turn-in to – perhaps – advance the main story.

Boss fights are a typical affair of dodging attacks and then closing distance to – not too greedily – sneak in some blows. I quickly found some need for spells, but there were also bosses I could rush and greedily circle straife. Even some regular enemies can put up a tough fight, and I took great satisfaction in battling through a whole pit full of angry floating things that, on my first encounter, had previously effortlessly instakilled me.

While the graphics are intentionally crunchy, they are far more detailed than what you would expect from an early Playstation game and you’ll notice little touches like the glow of enchanted weapons catching on the scenery. The low detail makes the game much more readable, everything is clearly distinguishable and items and things of interest are easy to spot from a distance. This comes with the notable exception of levers, which seem to be impossible to spot and there’s rarely any clear indication of what – if anything – they are doing and how many more you need to find. It’s fortuitous that my secret-door sense tingles in, usually, the right places and there are a couple of doors which do suggest they need some levers to be flipped when interacted with. On top of the, mostly, clear readability there is some limited signposting normally with lights or intriguing glowy things

Evoking nostalgic memories of Soul Reaver and Azrael’s Tear, Verho: Curse of Faces captivated me in its mysterious world of Yariv, buried me in lore and gave me myriad secrets to unravel. At times it felt a little daunting but the various regions never outstayed their welcome, though I suspect I may have moved on without quite teasing out every secret. While it never quite recreates the awe I experienced gazing over the vast landscapes of the Lands Between, Verho still has its moments with varied levels all tied together by the same thick atmosphere and prevailing sense of despair. Despite Verho gradually ramping up the difficulty (with traps and jumping puzzles being particularly fiendish) there wasn’t much I couldn’t grind my way through with levels or liberal potion quaffing. There’s also never all that far to go from a save point, thankfully.

You can pick up Verho: Curse of Faces on Steam for £17.99. If the trailer doesn’t finish hooking you, I don’t know what will!

Tuesday, November 11th, 2025, Steam Deck.