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Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Pro
Also Available On: PC and Xbox Series X/S
Price: $24.99
Developer: Tiny Bull Studios
Publisher: DON’T NOD
Release Date: October 23rd, 2025
Please note: A review code was provided for this review, but it does not influence the opinions stated here in any way.
Tackling a heavy topic in games has been done many times before. From the likes of planetary destruction, to suicide and bullying, and loads of others, Lonesome Guild doesn’t shy away from major heavy topics. The biggest topic displayed in the game is Loneliness; however, it is definitely not the only one that is put on display. Tiny Bull Studios created an action RPG-style game featuring multiple characters who face challenges in their own lives. Each of them is unsure of their place of belonging due to different issues that surround who they are, but they all find a collectiveness in the guild. The real question that should be asked, though, is whether the game stuck the landing or was it a bit of a misstep?
The story takes place in a land that is inhabited by many different species who each takes one individual and makes them a champion of their people. The six different champions travel to a place where a ritual called the ascension takes place. The ascension right before your journey began failed, for the first time, and now there is a problem with the world, where it is being overrun with a mysterious red fog that will continuously spread. During the adventure, you will learn that this fog is loneliness and the reason why it is spreading. At the beginning of the game, you meet a ghost with no memories who wants to help unravel the mystery of what is happening. The ghost and the rest of the cast you meet along the way must work together to unravel the mystery. Along the way, many things happen to the cast, including betrayal, heartbreak, destruction, deception, and more. I am purposely being a bit vague on the story since I don’t really want to spoil anything about the plot. The overarching story and the multiple subplots that are in the game are better than I thought they would be, although some of them are better than others.
The core gameplay is a top-down action RPG. There are a total of six characters that will eventually be in your party; however, you can only have three on your battle team at one specific time. The ghost acts as an assistant, but cannot attack on his own, so he doesn’t count as a party member in this sense. There are both magical and physical attackers, and while some are more well-rounded and can be built either way, others are specifically one way or the other. Personally, once I had all six of the teammates available that you can get in the game (close to mid-game), I never changed two of them out and would only swap the last spot out on occasion because of how powerful they were.
You have quite a few tools in your arsenal during battles. These include the massive ghost attack that charges through battle, support skills, dodge roll and run, standard basic attacks, and special attacks. Once you perform enough standard attacks, you can then unleash special abilities. Some of these special abilities are incredibly powerful, but unlocking these special abilities isn’t just based on the level of the character. No, in this game, the ghost isn’t just there to get you from point A to B. Rather, he is a great friend that you need to spend time with through conversations at campfires. You unlock these conversations by leveling up the bond that the ghost has with each character individually by finding each character’s hidden collectible either in the world or by rewards for completing side missions. Based on your relationship with the ghost, you can use skill points that you get from leveling up in battle by way of the skill tree to unlock and improve the different characters.
Besides battles and relationship building, puzzles are abundant throughout the game, including both main story progression and side areas. A lot of the puzzles may require you to use logic by speaking with different NPCs to figure out what is the correct solution. Other puzzles may require you to look at images on a wall and match them correctly in the world, but there are a few other ones that are a bit different. None of the puzzles are really that convoluted, but there are times when I got stumped for a couple of minutes since I wasn’t thinking about it correctly. On top of puzzles, there are many side quests that you can complete. Some of these include battles, finding objects off the beaten path, talking with different individuals, and more. Missions reward you with not just items, but also a good amount of experience points to level up pretty quickly if you are willing to do them. Each of the main six characters has an individual mission that explores their own wants, desires, and wishes that show more about who they are and what they believe.
On top of the side quests, relationship building, battling, and solving puzzles, there are also the different types of collectibles that you can find. Some of these are hidden ghosts that are scattered in the world. There are 15 of them, and I did search a bit, but I only really bothered to find eight of them. Secondly are the memories of the past that delve more into different individuals and what happened to them. Personally, these were really easy to find, and I didn’t have to do anything special. The third type of collectible in the game was the flowers that are scattered across the world. These actually provide status upgrades, including things like health or attack power, so they are worth exploring a bit to get. A lot of them are pretty easily spotted, some of them require optional puzzles that use your brain a bit, and then some of them I never ended up finding. I don’t have much left for collectibles, but I am not sure if it will be worth exploring due to a big bug I had in the game, which I will explain later.
One of my biggest issues when it comes to the presentation of this title is the complete lack of voice acting. In RPGs, voice acting gives the characters life, more than just the emotions or expressions that are shown on their faces. Since there aren’t any voices in the game, on occasion, the characters felt pretty flat for me. This would have easily been fixed with voices, and while this is a smaller game as a whole, other small games have voice work. There isn’t just a couple of words in the game either, rather there are loads of dialogue from NPCs, side missions, and of course the main story as well. The music and audio design for the rest of the game is good, besides this issue. The music is varied throughout the different lands, from lush upbeat sounds of a city to creepy vibes that are in the mystical woods.
The visual style of the game is actually one of my favorite parts of the adventure. There aren’t many 3D cutscenes, but they look great when they do appear. The 2D art images with text you look at from different story scenes are nice as well. The character models all look great, from the main characters to the other NPCs that you interact with. Unfortunately, I will say that the designs of enemies do eventually overstay their welcome, with most of them just being slight iterations of one another. The world as a whole is diverse, from the dark, lush greens of the forest to the cold blue of the frozen land. The game definitely does look better in motion than images may showcase, at least from my experience.
Unfortunately, the game had quite a few graphical issues and bugs that I experienced throughout my 16-hour play-through. One of the bigger bugs actually made me stop trying to collect everything or do all side missions in the game. It was a quest that required you to get three clues for a riddle by using the ghost by finding hidden signs that were invisible. I started the puzzle, and I thought I finished the quest, but I only got 2/3 clues and then moved on. When I came back to it later to finish it, the NPC that gave me the quest was blocking the totem to get the ghost energy, so I unfortunately couldn’t finish it. Apparently, it is a known bug and will eventually get fixed, but a progression blocker like this hurts the game for me quite a bit.
On top of this issue, there are a lot of lesser bugs, audio issues, one smaller gameplay annoyance, and graphical issues. There were graphical inconsistencies that plagued menu screens constantly for me, including things like shimmering effects near button prompts, white lines that randomly appeared on menu screens, and more. A big issue I saw many times throughout the game was missing character images and characters themselves during story conversations and relationship talks, which I was not happy about. Some of the other issues included audio skipping, frame rate being all over the place on some of the maps, and the rare input delay during a battle. I don’t like it when games crash, but thankfully, I can say I had no crashes in the game. The gameplay issue is the map system being broken up into pieces that are found in parts of each map. There is no one main map for the game, which annoys me when trying to collect all of the optional collectibles. The game isn’t polished to the level I had hoped, but it is definitely in a playable state for the most part.
Honestly, this is a nice indie game that will leave you with a sense of accomplishment in overcoming the sense of dread and loneliness. I think everyone struggles with loneliness or depression in one way or another at some point in their life, and this game really understands and incorporates the power of friendship and trust to fight it. The story is better than you probably would expect, the art and visuals in the game are good, the characters are terrific, and the combat is pretty fun most of the time. These things don’t really excuse the lack of voice acting (yes, I get it is an indie game, but still), the multiple bugs and graphical issues, and some of the gameplay design choices that hurt when trying to collect everything. The Lonesome Guild isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of imagination, but it also isn’t a game that should be overlooked when trying to find a sense of belonging with a group of friends.
Review Score: 7.5/10
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