Drova: Forsaken Kin

How many times can you die within the first 30 minutes of the game? If you're playing Drova: Forsaken Kin, the answer is "yes." Drova is an RPG that immediately throws you into the game without too much explanation and expects you to survive on your own. There are no huge markers, no hand-holding, and the game quickly convinces you that you are completely helpless.

The first hour of gameplay was a combination of wandering, bad decisions, and constant dying, but that's when the game starts to show why so many people compare it to Gothic and old hardcore RPG classics.

And honestly, if you survive the initial chaos, Drova becomes really hard to put down.

The story begins after the ritual of your Viking and Celtic-inspired tribe goes awry, and you end up in Drova, a crumbling fantasy world covered in deadly fog. In your hands, you carry a mysterious crystal given to you by a soothing druid, and the goal is to find the city of Nemeton, join one of two factions, and try to discover if there is a way to escape the deadly fog surrounding the world.

Drova constantly rewards curiosity. When you stray off the path for two minutes and suddenly find yourself in a new cave, you discover rare loot or unlock a completely new questline. This is an RPG where you can easily forget which quest you are working on and start doing something entirely different.

The game is practically open world from the very beginning, and you can go almost anywhere, but the question is how long you will survive. And this is what makes Drova so addictive. The world doesn't block you with invisible walls; it simply sends an enemy that turns you to dust if you wander off too early.

Drova also brutally sells the feeling of progression. At the start, practically anything can kill you (in the first hour, I surely died 12 times), and regular enemies feel like mini boss fights. As time goes on, you collect better gear, learn new skills, and slowly start to feel that your character is truly becoming stronger. Instead of just clicking "level up" in the menu, Drova forces you to seek out trainers in the world who will teach you new skills and fighting styles.

The combat, while fun, never reaches the level where you think "wow, this is genius." Fights are tough, good timing is very important, especially on higher difficulties. Dodging attacks, blocking, and properly managing the focus bar become crucial during tougher fights because your focus allows you to use stronger skills and magic. There’s also an interesting food system where food doesn’t heal instantly but provides health regeneration over time, adding an extra layer of tension and smart planning to fights.

And then there's the music

The soundtrack is probably one of the best parts of the entire experience. The atmosphere that the music creates during exploration, combat, and wandering practically carries half the game on its back.

Pixel art may seem simple in screenshots, but Drova has a brutal atmosphere when you actually play it. The animations are very good, the world feels livelier than you would expect from a 2D game, and the characters become surprisingly memorable over time. It's especially cool how the world changes through acts. For example, the bridge you help repair is later actually used by NPCs, which makes Drova feel like a world that reacts to your actions.

Of course, the game is not without its problems.

The biggest issue with Drova is precisely that beginning of the game, which can be quite frustrating for those who have just started playing RPGs. The game quickly leaves you without a clear direction, so the first few hours feel like random wandering and trying to figure out where you actually need to go.

The faction choice system is not as deep as it seems at first. Different paths end up with very similar quests and outcomes, so the part of “choice and consequence” fantasy loses some weight.

The combat, while fun, can sometimes feel artificially difficult. Some enemies have huge health pools and hit like a truck, which means that part of the difficulty comes down to patience rather than actual mechanical complexity.

Drova is not an RPG that will appeal to everyone, but if you enjoy games that throw you into a world without a compass and expect you to survive on your own, it could easily consume the next hundred hours of your life. After this review, I will continue playing it.

A copy of the mobile version of the game for review purposes was provided by the publisher Deck13.