I'm going to pull a CinemaSins nitpick on Labyrinth of the Demon King right out of the gate by pointing out that I would never, ever visit a place called "The Labyrinth of the Demon King." I don't care if my dead lord's honor is at stake: at a bare minimum the place has an insurmountable marketing and image issue. But as with the terribly named vacation town (and clear Demon King inspo) Silent Hill, we've got to suspend our disbelief to engage in that mutual act of trust between audience and storyteller.
Labyrinth of the Demon King is a first-person dungeon crawler set in what has to be the worst place in all of feudal Japan, a sprawling, dilapidated castle complex where cryptids and undead horrors reign supreme. The vibe is very much King's Field or Ultima Underworld, with slow-paced, tense melee combat and a massive interconnected map—I'm almost two hours into Labyrinth's limited time Steam Scream Fest demo, and it feels like I'm only halfway through at best. It's stressful and unnerving, but I also can't wait to jump back in for more.
Good first-person melee combat really lives or dies on all the little touches and intangibles you need to make that tired dance of light attack / strong attack / dodge / block really sing, and Demon King blessedly delivers on that front. Its stamina system is shockingly unforgiving, with the pool's auto recovery more resembling the pace of other games' mana bars—a slow tick upward once you've stopped swinging, dodging, or kicking for a few beats. Managing that limited pool started to prove challenging once multiple enemies or more difficult foes entered the mix, and even Demon King's basic Goomba guys could catch me off guard with a weirdly timed attack or block-breaking kick.
But nailing a combo and punishing one of Demon King's freaky horrors feels phenomenal. You've got an Arkane-style kick that breaks enemies' guards and combos nicely into follow-up sword swings, while finishing blows will ragdollize and occasionally decapitate foes in a ludicrously satisfying way. If I've got one gripe, it's that the parry feels particularly sluggish and difficult to time, and I had much better luck out spacing enemies or kicking them to interrupt an attack. Minor complaints aside, every duel is both genuinely threatening and feels rewarding to overcome.
But any feeling of triumph or samurai badassery is short-lived—and not just because you're actually playing as a low-ranking ashigaru foot soldier instead of the world-renowned warrior nobility. The atmosphere in the Labyrinth is deliciously, gruesomely oppressive.
Labyrinth of the Demon King has that truly excellent kind of throwback PS1-style art, the kind where you can tell developer J.R. Hudepohl is making a lo-fi game because he wants to and it fits his vision, not because it's just what time or resources allow.
This uniquely desaturated, brown and grey vision of Feudal Japan looks like nothing else out there, with the Silent Hill "rusted industrial hell" brush liberally applied to the distinctive interiors of a Japanese castle. As with bodycam-style shooters like Unrecord, the fuzz and noise of Labyrinth of the Demon King's low-res presentation adds a greater sense of realism to assets that might not deliver the same effect when viewed from a more standard camera.
The game also sounds just brutal, with the audio going from pure silence to ambient droning to pulsing drums seemingly at random as you explore. I worry this could lose some of its edge over the course of a full game, but I was definitely on edge for the entire duration of my playtime so far, with the sound of drums in a rotted, forgotten corridor speeding up only to culminate in nothing, while utter silence would occasionally be broken by an ambush.
I was tickled by some other, similar fake outs and trolling in Labyrinth of the Demon King. A pitch-dark room with a hideous bloodstain trailing off into the shadows had me pull a Grandpa Simpson when I first found it, but coming back later revealed that the only thing waiting for me back there was a new weapon. A found journal about the curses brought on by neglecting butsudan household shrines had me hesitate to accept a sidequest that required vandalizing one, but when I finally worked up my courage, held my breath, and nabbed the statue in the butsudan, ready to bolt down the hall toward my quest giver? Nothing but silence (though judging by one of Hudepohl's old videos, I might not be out of the woods yet).
I'm in love with the segment of the labyrinth I've explored so far: This bastion of the castle has some real Thief-y, immersive sim, "feels like a real place" energy, with a sensible, functional layout hidden under the grime and otherworldly fungus. It all has a fantastic, tactile attention to detail too, with interactive panels and drawers on cabinets or other furniture, and useful items like journals, healing sake, or magical talismans tastefully arranged among useless clutter like the most believable interiors of The Elder Scrolls games.
Labyrinth of the Demon King has the juice, and its juice is nasty. The demo is the perfect treat for the greater extended Halloween season—the first week of November is still Halloween! The full game is set to release some time in 2025—you can wishlist it on Steam and download the demo until it goes away with the end of the Steam Scream Fest on November 4.
