Dread Trials

A century of war, a new story

Dread Trials, released April 23, 2026 by solo Chinese developer and publisher Hitbear Studio, is a standalone action-RPG spin-off of the studio's established Eternal Dread series. Rather than continuing that series' storyline, it drops players into a new, self-contained tale set in a kingdom bled dry of men by a century-long war, where the women left behind must take up arms to defend their homes. Reviewers who came in cold on the series generally describe it as an easy entry point, while longtime fans note explicitly that it doesn't connect to the earlier games' plot. It launched to a Very Positive reception, 184 reviews, roughly 83%.

Combat that lands, builds that go deep

The core hack-and-slash combat is the most consistently praised element of the review sample. Reviewers describe air combos, dash attacks, and a smooth, responsive moveset that holds up across a roughly ten-to-fifteen-hour campaign. Underneath that sits a genuinely deep customization layer: skills drawn from four overlapping combat styles can each be slotted with runes and signets pulled from a shared pool, letting players chase specific builds, from crowd-control mages who chain storms and shields to melee bruisers who stack cooldown reduction. Several reviewers who otherwise have complaints about the game single out this system as reason enough to keep playing through to the end.

A capture hook that doesn't go far enough

Dread Trials' headline new mechanic lets players subdue defeated enemies in battle rather than killing them, then bring them back to town to either sell, imprison, or win over as a party ally through repeated interaction. It's the feature reviewers mention most often, and also the one that draws the most disappointment. The system only allows a player to hold one prisoner at a time, and the pool of enemies that can actually be captured turns out to be small, since the large majority of the game's roster is non-humanoid and therefore ineligible. Multiple reviewers who bought the game specifically for this mechanic describe it as feeling shallow once the novelty wears off, with little meaningful interaction or dialogue offered once an ally joins the party.

A step back for series veterans

A recurring thread among players who'd previously put dozens of hours into Eternal Dread 3 is that Dread Trials feels like a smaller, more compressed follow-up in several specific ways: fewer unique enemy-defeat animations, reduced character-customization options such as eye color, and a merged class system that some find less flexible than the previous game's separate profession trees. One detailed negative review goes further, arguing the game reuses player models and combat systems closely enough from the "Eternal Dread" games that a blind side-by-side would be hard to tell apart, and suggesting the asset overlap outweighs the new story dressed on top. That view is a minority position in the sample, most reviewers who reference the earlier games call this one an improvement in combat feel even while agreeing some content was trimmed, but it's a consistent enough complaint to be worth flagging for anyone coming from the series' prior entries expecting a straightforward step up.

Save points, not saves anywhere

A practical complaint raised by several reviewers is the lack of a free save option. Progress can only be saved by returning to a town or a discovered teleport point, which means stepping away mid-dungeon risks losing recent progress unless a player backtracks first. It's a small friction point in an otherwise convenience-minded design, but it's mentioned often enough in the negative review sample to be a real one.

Jump scares of the platforming kind

Several reviewers single out specific platforming sections, most notably an icy area with slippery jump timing, as unfair relative to the rest of the game's difficulty curve, with missed jumps sending players back to retry lengthy sequences. It's a narrow complaint scoped to a handful of areas rather than a systemic issue, but it stands out precisely because the combat and traversal are otherwise well-tuned.

Presentation and tone

Reviewers across multiple languages praise the character art and environment design as strong for the price and for a small studio's output, and the soundtrack draws specific compliments for varying meaningfully between locations. Dread Trials leans into a bondage-and-capture aesthetic drawn from the same tradition as its predecessors, without depicting explicit content, a choice some reviewers who came for the earlier games' more explicit tone found disappointing, while others appreciated that the game keeps its content all-ages while still delivering the capture-and-subdue fantasy its marketing promises.

Value at $15.99

Most reviewers treat $15.99 as reasonable for the roughly ten-to-fifteen-hour campaign and the build variety on offer, several specifically framing it as good value next to bigger-budget action-RPGs. A smaller group, mostly longtime series fans, argue the trimmed content relative to Eternal Dread 3 makes the asking price feel steep for what's delivered, and recommend waiting for a discount if you've already played the earlier games and know roughly what to expect.

Who should take up arms

Dread Trials suits players who enjoy hack-and-slash action-RPGs with genuine build depth and don't need every mechanic fully fleshed out to enjoy the ride, particularly newcomers without prior attachment to the Eternal Dread series. Longtime fans of that series should go in with tempered expectations around content scope, and anyone hoping the capture system would be a deep recruitment mechanic in its own right will likely come away wanting more.

The verdict

Dread Trials backs up a fluid combat system and a genuinely rewarding rune-and-skill-tree setup with a capture mechanic that promises more than it delivers and a story that plays it safer than some fans wanted. It's a competent, good-looking action-RPG at a fair price, just not the clear step forward its predecessor's fans may have been hoping for.