The Thaumaturge

Most of the time, what's marketed as fantasy is anything but fantastical. Fantasy movies are too often singularly lacking in magic, jokey romps with the visual styling of a medieval theme park. Fantasy novels, steered by imagined trends that publishing executives might just as well derive from staring at birds, are cookie-cutter remixes of the Last Big Thing*. And CRPGs? Face it, they're usually just D&D under a different label.

In such times, who would admit to liking fantasy? Tentatively my hand goes up. I'm a fan of fantasy fiction in the same way that Diogenes was a fan of honest men. So finding something really, really good in the genre is sweet water to parched lips. And that's The Thaumaturge, developed by Fool's Theory, which Jamie and I have been playing obsessively this month.

The game is set in Poland in 1905 and involves the experiences of Wiktor Szulski, who is one of a clandestine group of mages who derive their power by binding unseen beings called salutors. After the violent death of his father, from whom he was estranged, Wiktor returns home to Poland and investigates the possibility of murder while getting embroiled in family tensions and the politics and social intrigues of the day.

Twin pique

The sense of atmosphere is superbly evoked, both for the historical period and the feeling of uncanny magic deriving from Eastern European folklore. The occasional black humour is nicely judged and doesn't rely on anachronisms. The characters -- including some famous names you'll have heard of -- are rounded, complex and believable, and in investigating the stories of their Flaws (the character traits that led to a salutor attaching itself to them) you'll often find that your first or even second guess is wide of the mark. The story unfolds in surprising ways, always richly inventive, and with plot twists that are more interesting and make more sense than you'll find in many a movie or TV show.

Hello, Darkness, my old friend

Add to that the resonance with modern real-life events, which pervades the story without ever being hammered home, and you have what is not just the best CRPG for several years but the best fantasy story in any medium. The writing team comprises Paweł Nowak, Magdalena Bialek, Alicja Korzewska, and Paula Mejsner, and this open-world game is so story- and character-centred that I'm bound to emphasize their work, but the credit goes not just to the writers but to the visual designers and the other developers who built up the meticulous details of the game world. Just look at the personality conveyed by the macabre and silent Upyr, oldest of your salutors, a nightmarish presence who feels also like a faithful companion and by that contrast draws you into what it feels like to be a thaumaturge with one foot in reality and the other in a different world. There is real creative genius here. My faith in fantasy, at least for another year, is restored.

* The other day a friend was telling me about a bestselling series set in a school for teen dragon-riders. "Of course it's just Anne McCaffrey meets J K Rowling," they said, "but with a TikTok vibe for readers who've never read a Pern or Harry Potter book."