Mandragora hands-on: Dark Souls meets European folklore in a beautiful hand-painted world
3.5.2025
By Dave Tach, Contributor
The seeds that grew into Primal Game Studio’s upcoming action role-playing game were planted in 2016, when two of the studio’s creative leads—artists and game designers—took a trip to Ireland and fell in love with the country’s centuries-old cultural mythology. That love sprouted over the next couple of years, expanding with the nutrients provided by wider European folklore and influences from some of the nascent development team’s favorite games. And perhaps none is more immediately prominent than FromSoftware’s Dark Souls.
FromSoftware’s idiosyncratic flavor of development gained widespread acclaim with the release of Dark Souls in late 2011. For more than a decade, the Japanese developer has been arguably the most influential in the video game industry. Its influences abound, from the invention and dissemination of the "Soulslike" and "Soulsborne" subgenre names to the dark fantasy elements in recent open-world Legend of Zelda games. You can see that same influence in Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, whose mysterious narrative and red-and-green-bar-governed gameplay speaks the same design language as Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and more.
Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree’s other obvious influence is the Metroidvania subgenre. The portmanteau refers to exploration and platforming through sprawling, interconnected maps with hidden areas, popularized decades ago by the Metroid and Castlevania series.
During a preview event ahead of the game’s April 17 release, the developers were happy to cite the shoulders of giants on which their game stands. But they were also quick to point out that Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is full of homages and influences that combine and twist their influences to make something unique.
“We're not trying to be a pure version of multiple different genres all at the same time,” Community Marketing Manager Alex Pearson said. “We're mixing and matching all the things we like best to create a fresh but familiar experience.”
After playing the most recent build of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, I’m inclined to agree. There's no doubt that Primal Game Studio has something quite interesting and beautiful to offer.
An unreal, beautiful world
The early-game locations show an impressive diversity of level design. Population centers are filled both with conversations to overhear and NPCs to interact with—some characters even watch what you’re doing, scold you, and then recant when they realize who you are. Pay enough attention as you run through and you’ll be rewarded with items and hidden locations just a few optional jumps or attacks away.
The game takes place on a 2D plane, though it’s rendered in 3D. The background environment tells some of the backstory too, rendered with a pleasing depth of field that brings focus to the foreground while silently telling the tale of a living world behind you. As you move out into the dangerous hinterlands, the generally flat and gently sloping terrain gives way to hills and valleys, alcoves and caves that keep each area visually (and traversally) interesting.
Unreal Engine powers Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, an impressively detailed game that evolves a genre with blocky 8-bit roots into the modern age. Primal Game Studio stylized the game’s characters, cutscenes, and environments with a hand-painted aesthetic and fluid, detailed animations that create a strange sense of realism and surrealism.
The world of Faelduum is unmistakably medieval and magical, both for good and for evil. A mysterious force known as Entropy is asserting its malevolent influence upon the world, which you can sometimes see being ripped apart at its literal seams.
It is your job to stand for the light against the encroaching darkness, and your journey begins with picking your character's starting class.
Mandragora character classes
The Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree playtest has three classes and the final game will have six, though it’s probably more accurate to think of them as starting classes. Like a FromSoftware game, you can pour points into any attributes you like and tailor your character to your playstyle.
“You can mix the classes,” said Development Director Krisztian Varaljai. “You are not locked to a single class. You can expand into any direction on the talent tree.”
That talent tree is actually a vast collection of more than 200 skills displayed across various screens, each focused on a character class. It lets players personalize their (starting) character; you could start with a magic-focused class yet build a hero with skills more closely associated with brawlers.
The first character I chose seemed to be the simplest, and my assumption was right. The Vanguard has a sword in their right hand, a shield in their left, and a penchant for close-quarters combat. Switching from blocking to attacking felt strangely slow. At first, I died a lot because I couldn’t quite get the feel, and I compensated for my lack of understanding by being aggressive with my regular attack and a heavy uppercut that I could only use when I had earned enough energy. My initial misapplied aggression was based on a misunderstanding of the class’s subtleties.
Looking at the HUD in the bottom left corner of the screen, I noticed an icon and its associated button combo. So I tried it out, blocking with RB on my Xbox controller, hitting X, and then swinging my shield. That’s Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree’s perfect parry mechanic. Thanks to its generous timing window, mastering the art of aggressive defense turned my enemies’ attacks against them. They staggered. I swung. They died.
The Vanguard class may be the simplest to conceptualize, but it’s tricky to master. The game’s first boss, a giant wolf, tested my newfound ability to balance offense and defense. I died; I died again; I died again and again. I ended up succeeding by liberally applying the roll mechanic, somersaulting through its attacks for a quick punish, and then backing away to get some space to watch for its next assault.
Later, I started a new game with the Spellbinder class, and I was immediately smitten. Instead of a shield in their left hand, they hold a hovering purple crystal that shoots magic beams. Any enemy caught in its path sees its energy drained second by second. The Spellbinder wields a sword in their right hand that seems indistinguishable from the Vanguard’s.
The bandits who helped me master my perfect parry when I was playing as a Spellbinder melted under the heat of my magic beam before they could even get close enough to attack. I loved the option to switch between close-quarters and ranged combat that the Spellbinder provided.
The final class available in this build is the Nightshade, who dual-wields a pair of long blue daggers. They deal comparatively less damage than a single sword strike, but that’s balanced with the ability to attack quicker and more often. It makes sense: Swinging daggers takes less stamina than swinging a large sword.
I’m glad that happenstance had me choose the Nightshade last, because it’s the most difficult of the bunch. Unlike the Vanguard, it has no shield. Unlike the Spellbinder, it has no all-powerful ranged attack. Learning how to attack, manage your stamina, and dodge your way through and out of encounters are all necessary skills that are tough to master, but they're each quite satisfying in their own way.
I enjoyed the aggression that the character’s design implies, and while I’m sure that my familiarity born of playing the first part of the game for the third time contributed to my success, it was a lot of fun to confidently run in, swing away, and succeed.
The Vanguard, the Spellbinder and the Nightshade each feel different enough to justify their choice for players looking to play to their strengths. At launch, three more classes will join the fray. The Flameweaver controls fire and favors one-handed weapons. The Wyldwarden has what the developers describe as a “unique bond to natural forces.” Finally, the Vindicator has “command over celestial energies.”
Choose your own difficulty in a believable experience
Judging from my experience, a lot of the early-game challenge in Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree comes from learning the details of each character class. The learning curve is certainly steep, but it rewarded my repeated attempts and my careful attention. This is no button-masher; you’ll need skill to survive, and the game makes you learn it early.
During a Q&A, Lead Game Designer Gabor Szabo said that the idea was to create a “believable experience,” and it wasn’t until I played Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree that I understood what he meant. The game is pure dark fantasy. But it’s graspable, understandable, and conquerable, just like the games in the Dark Souls series that influenced it.
“Our goal was to create a believable experience,” Szabo said. “So if you see a dumb monster—a zombie, for example—it will not escape, it will not run from you. It will act as a target dummy, for example. But if you encounter a skilled assassin—an enemy assassin—we, as a player, expect it to behave like it's a skilled assassin. So it will jump, it will roll behind you, it will try to punish you for your mistakes.
“So that was our goal when setting up different kinds of AIs. That is also true for the bosses. We have some huge, powerful but stupid bosses, which can kill you with one hit, but they are very dumb so you can easily outsmart them. Of course we have smart bosses [who] try to kill you in any way possible.”
The game’s overall difficulty is malleable. Its developers set the initial challenge, but they want Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree to be welcoming and accessible to players of all skill levels. That’s why they developed a system where everyone can tailor the challenge to their liking.
“You can set the difficulty of the game by modifying enemy health, enemy damage, and player stamina cost on a 70% to 100% slider,” said Development Director Krisztian Varaljai.
Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree isn’t just influenced by some of the greats. In its 8 to 10 hour-long preview, I watched it take what makes those influences great and combine them into something challenging and interesting. In addition to that, there are multiple endings, each of which is based on the choices you make, though you can only get one per playthrough. Based on my experience, I can imagine spending 40 to 50 hours of the full game exploring every facet of Mandragora's 11 maps and 75 locations. It's another promising Metroidvania in the making.
You can pre-purchase Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on Epic Games Store now and receive instant access to a preview build of the game, which is slated for release on April 17.