Abandoned Archive

Five years in the making, released under a familiar name

Abandoned Archive is the work of a solo developer credited as Vedal, self-published and released 24 November 2025 after roughly five years of development. That timeline predates the project most players now associate with the name: Vedal is also the creator of Neuro-sama, an AI-driven virtual streamer who debuted with a synthesised voice and animated avatar on Twitch in December 2022 and has since become one of the platform's most-watched independent streaming projects. Development on Abandoned Archive was underway well before that, and continued alongside it, which explains both the unusually large review base for a debut solo roguelike at this price point and the heavy presence of in-jokes and streamer-specific references scattered through its Steam reviews. Setting that context aside, the game itself is a straightforward pitch: a fantasy, spell-casting action roguelike, moving the player through procedurally arranged floors filled with relics, upgrade choices and increasingly dangerous bosses, with a spell-upgrading system the store page specifically foregrounds as the project's central hook.

Where the depth actually is

The praise that recurs most consistently across Abandoned Archive's review corpus centres on genuine decision-making rather than simple stat accumulation. Reviewers describe a wide variety of spells and upgrade paths available even within a single early run, giving loadouts room to feel meaningfully different from one attempt to the next. Beyond spell selection itself, the game layers in real choices between floors: players can spend earned currency to reroll a boon they don't want, or gamble on optional risk-reward events that offer extra relics and knowledge at the cost of potential setbacks. One detailed review specifically credits the game for not forcing bad choices the way some roguelikes do by design, noting that declining a risky option never feels like the punished choice. Enemy design in the base combat loop draws a similar, more specific compliment: several reviewers note that not every enemy deals contact damage on touch, a small design decision that opens up aggressive, close-range play without making it reflexively dangerous — the kind of detail that reads as a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.

The difficulty spike, and the feedback that doesn't quite land

Set against that praise is a genuinely detailed and specific body of criticism, most of it written by reviewers with real playtime rather than players bouncing off the opening minutes. The most common complaint concerns telegraphing: enemy attacks, especially from bosses, are frequently described as lacking clear visual cues, making damage feel unpredictable rather than a matter of properly reading and reacting to a threat. Compounding that, several reviewers describe combat's hit feedback as lacking "oomph," with attacks landing correctly but not registering with much visible or tactile impact — a complaint distinct from telegraphing but closely related, since both make it harder for a player to build confidence in what's actually happening on screen. One reviewer specifically pointed to excessive bloom and glow effects as part of what makes some encounters difficult to parse, alongside areas reported as uncomfortably dark without any in-game brightness adjustment available.

Difficulty balancing draws the sharpest specific criticism. Multiple reviewers independently describe a difficulty spike at the game's first boss, and a second, steeper one entering the second floor, where enemy health scaling is reported to outpace the growth in the player's own spell power across the same stretch of the run. One detailed critical review, while noting genuine fondness for Vedal's other work, calls Abandoned Archive "pretty unfinished," arguing it needed more spell variety, more item synergy and further rebalancing before launch, and that upgrades available before reaching those early bosses feel too sparse relative to the sudden jump in enemy strength. A related, narrower complaint concerns build depth: several reviewers describe relics and passive upgrades as often disconnected from one another, pushing successful builds toward a narrow set of strong, broadly useful choices rather than rewarding deliberate synergy-building across a run. Smaller interface friction compounds these complaints for some players — swapping a spell out of a full stance can reportedly cost accumulated ability energy without warning, and the absence of a minimap is raised repeatedly as a missing basic convenience for a genre built around floor-to-floor exploration.

A roguelike that mostly earns its enthusiastic reception

It's worth weighing the scale of these complaints against how the broader review base has actually responded. Very Positive, with 711 positive reviews against 51 negative across 762 total, is a strong result for any solo-developer release, and the ratio holds even accounting for the game's unusually large and vocal fanbase — the negative share is detailed enough, and specific enough about the same recurring issues, that it reads as genuine critical feedback rather than review-bombing in either direction. Several of the most engaged players report well over a hundred hours logged, with one extended, mixed-but-ultimately-critical review noting nearly 36 hours invested before writing up specific concerns about a bonus "Anarchy" stage that can permanently attach a damaging debuff to a run without any way to opt out. That level of detailed, hours-deep critique from players who clearly enjoy the core loop enough to keep playing is a meaningfully different signal than a wave of quick negative reviews from players who never got past the opening floors.

Value

At NZ$8.99, Abandoned Archive is priced well below most of its genre peers, and reviewers repeatedly flag that price as a significant part of why they're willing to forgive its rougher edges — a cheap, replayable, difficult roguelike with a genuinely deep spell system is a reasonable purchase even before factoring in any interest in the developer's other work. The Very Positive score reflects a review base that has, on balance, judged the trade-off in the game's favour, while a real, detailed minority makes a fair case that the difficulty curve, hit feedback and relic synergy need further work to match the depth of its best ideas. For players comfortable with a challenging, still-evolving solo project, the value case here is a clear yes; for players who bounce off unclear telegraphing or steep early spikes, the specific complaints above are worth reading closely before buying.