Because of its central focus being its satisfying fight and high-spectacle boss encounters, The First Berserker: Khazan is a Soulslike that appears to actually be resonating with followers of the style and the FromSoftware classics that impressed them. After all, a part of The First Berserker: Khazan‘s enchantment is that it deftly straddles the road between homage and innovation, bringing simply sufficient new to the Soulslike dialog whereas concurrently honoring the design template established by FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls again in 2009. Unsurprising, then, that the sport goes as far as to honor probably the most polarizing points of FromSoftware’s catalog: the poison swamp.
Poison swamps (and Miyazaki’s well-known fondness for them) are hallmarks of FromSoftware’s Soulsborne video games, routinely exhibiting as much as both put a damper on the expertise of those that detest them or function a becoming and acquainted reminder that one is certainly taking part in a Souls sport. Accordingly, the poison swamp is a daily fixture of the Soulslike subgenre, and The First Berserker: Khazan is not any exception. The Skoffa Cave location in Khazan is without doubt one of the sport’s first true gauntlets for survival, and it is a polarizing space that might both be the sport’s early excessive level or low level, relying on the participant.

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The First Berserker: Khazan – Simple vs. Regular Mode Defined
The First Berserker: Khazan is one in every of a really small handful of Soulslike video games that gives gamers completely different issue choices.
Skoffa Cave Places Gamers Via the Ringer Earlier than They Even Attain the Swamp
The poison swamp gamers encounter in The First Berserker: Khazan comes about throughout the sport’s fifth important mission, Unusual Stench, by which gamers should traverse by means of Skoffa Cave to achieve Palemion. However earlier than even reaching the Poisoned Depths space of Skoffa Cave, the cave itself is rife with risks for gamers to beat that make the swamp itself pale compared. It is nearly as if the poison swamp is a little bit of a reprieve when stacked up subsequent to the remainder of what Skoffa Cave has to supply.
Between the myriad spiders, bats, and undead foes that inhabit the higher ranges of Skoffa Cave, Khazan could have a tough sufficient time simply reaching the Poisoned Depths, a lot much less efficiently navigating by means of them. It would not assist that the brand new undead enemies are the primary foes gamers will encounter that inflict the Plague standing impact, which, when paired with the Poison injury spider enemies can inflict, is tantamount to a demise sentence. The First Berserker: Khazan‘s Skoffa Cave space is the sport’s first true environmental problem and a gauntlet for survival that makes its precious rewards that a lot sweeter.
The First Berserker: Khazan Has Priceless Classes to Train Gamers Via its Poison Swamp
The reward for making it by means of the depths of Skoffa Cave and efficiently traversing the poison swamps inside is a struggle with one in every of The First Berserker: Khazan‘s greatest beast-type bosses, the huge spider Aratra. Defeating Aratra unlocks entry to the Blacksmith again in The Crevice, which quantities to gamers lastly with the ability to have extra company over their gear choice and construct in a method that’s actually game-changing. However the classes that The First Berserker: Khazan teaches gamers by means of the expertise of surviving Skoffa Cave and its poison swamp are simply as precious.
By the point gamers clear Skoffa Cave, they may have an intimate understanding of how essential it’s to guard towards standing illnesses in The First Berserker: Khazan, which is a lesson that’s partially imparted by the boss struggle towards Volbaino that precedes the realm. Like the most effective Soulslikes do, The First Berserker: Khazan communicates precious and essential data to the participant through the struggles that they should endure, and studying the significance of defending towards debilitating standing results is a lesson that may serve gamers properly as the sport solely continues to ratchet up in depth and issue following gamers’ trek by means of an notorious poison swamp.

- Launched
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March 27, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Neople