Return to Nangrim will be an adventure game where we investigate an ancient dwarven city as a dwarf.
My circle of friends consists mostly of quite reasonable people. That’s why we all agree that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the best sequence of feature films ever thrown onto a cinema screen. Whereby, you don’t have to be that reasonable for that. After all, it’s an objective truth.
That’s why it always shocks me that we disagree on one point: Gimli. The likeable dwarf with the loose mouth and the big axe. I love this little warrior. But a few friends of mine think that the companion is ridiculed too much in the films. I think that’s nonsense, because even though Gimli is funny, you can still take him seriously at any time.
The little folk is even one of my absolute favourites thanks to film Gimli. My rule is: if you can play a dwarf, I will play him. And it’s a shame that in the Elder Scrolls games, of all things, dwarves are never among the playable races.
One of my favourite role-playing series doesn’t let me explore its world as a bearded axe-wielder. You see, the Dwemer are all gone. If that were different, I would never have started downloading mods for Oblivion. The first mod of my life let me explore an abandoned dwarven city in the style of Moria as a dwarf. There was nothing to do, but I had hours of fun with it.
Why am I telling you all this now about Gimli and dwarves in Elder Scrolls? I want you to understand why I was so excited about the playable demo of the Swiss indie game Return to Nangrim. Because this game fulfils one of my most fervent wishes.
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Finally be small for once
And that is the wish to no longer be 1, 90 metres tall. Really, that can be extremely annoying. Especially on the plane.
All joking aside. I don’t have a problem with my height. But I still like being a dwarf in role-playing games and Return to Nangrim does exactly the same as this mod I downloaded for Oblivion 15 years ago. Only much better and with much more content.
But beware, I don’t want to raise false expectations here. Return to Nangrim was inspired by Skyrim, among other things, but you can’t expect a sprawling open-world role-playing game with dwarves. The demo in particular is still a very focused adventure game. Nevertheless, it gave me a terrific feeling of being in the middle of things and allowed me to have the illusion of actually being a dwarf for once.
You don’t usually get that in this form. Not even in games like Dragon Age: Origins, where you never switch to the first-person perspective. And where the forced romance with Morrigan gives me nightmares to this day – maybe I should reconsider this dwarf rule.
The Steam demo of Return to Nangrim is not meant to represent the actual game with all its planned game elements. It is not a so-called vertical slice, but a first impression for the look and feel that the developers want to aim for in the finished version.
And by my beard! This feeling has already triggered a comforting warmth in my stomach area!
The atmosphere is already great
Return to Nangrim seems rather melancholic and depressing – exactly my preferred mood. It starts with the huge, grey rock massifs towering to the left and right before I even reach the dwarf city of Nangrim in the role of the dwarf Bahadur. So I work my way through the snow-covered mountains and the ruined wooden bridges until I reach a gate into the city.
Here I then search abandoned stone chambers, read dwarven runes, find the skeletal remains of the former inhabitants. Return to Nangrim awakens my instinct for discovery by luring me with ancient secrets. Why is Nangrim abandoned? How deep does this city even go? How did the dwarves live here. I feel like a small, burly archaeologist. Just leafing through the ancient books is fun, as I really turn every page. I can smell the yellowed smell of old parchment.
There’s even a bit of fighting in the demo, but only against tiny spiders, which I quickly turn into red soup with my homemade axe. But it’s much more about searching for keys, mining a few ores and (the highlight) forging different ores or smelted ingots into useful items at an Old Forge. Meanwhile, my dwarven hero makes occasional comments, his growly, deep voice echoing through the corridors of the ancient city. Hach.
Seven years of back story
I already realise that I like Return to Nangrim mainly because it just hits my taste exactly. It fulfils exactly the wish I’ve been harbouring for years. Dwarves are great, and they should be the centre of attention much more often.
In terms of play, Return to Nangrim does not yet build an astonishing hall. But that’s not even the task of the Steam demo, as CEO Michela Rimensberger and Lukas Nowak from developer studio Sycoforge tell me. The small team of four full-time and four part-time developers and about 20 freelancers only provides a good foretaste and still has a lot planned.
Part of the team has been working on the world of Return to Nangrim for seven years. The aim was to create a fantasy universe that is self-contained and does not constantly contradict itself. All in all, the world of Arafinn seems very close to Middle Earth, in which there are also races other than dwarves. But dwarves are supposed to be the most underrepresented according to the developers. True words.
More role-playing elements are planned later for the finished adventure game – and even procedurally generated content.
Return to Nangrim will not be a mountain-crystal clear role-playing game
While I would of course personally love nothing more than to create my very own dwarf, that kind of roleplaying is not envisioned for Return ton Nangrim. As I said, this won’t be an Elder Scrolls with dwarves. Although the combat system in the current variant seems to be inspired by them. My dwarf can carry objects on the left or right, or in both hands. I use the left hand with the left mouse button, the right with the right.
Collecting items and crafting also have a place. However, the distribution is to be procedural, i.e. a bit random, in order to provide variety. Puzzles can also deviate. Nangrim and the surrounding countryside should also be freely accessible, provided my dwarf can open initially locked areas in the course of the game. In the demo, I already liked the fact that I had to work my way through the area without much visual help and carefully study the hints.
There are hardly any living dwarves left in Nangrim. According to the developers, however, one has survived for us to encounter.
According to the developers, this is still due to the version in which the minimap is not complete. So if you don’t want to explore the corridors for a long time like me, you can follow quest markers in the finished game. This only dampens my own anticipation to a certain extent, because I can then choose to switch off the minimap.
What could become of the dwarf adventure game
If you, like me, have a heart for the gruff little folk, then you should definitely try out the (Demo of Return to Nangrim). It whetted my appetite for the finished game – of course, especially out of personal preference. But I think the team has also submitted an interesting concept that should not only appeal to dwarf fans like me, especially visually and atmospherically.
I am also very curious to see how the world around Nangrim will continue. I don’t get enough games about Middle-earth, so why not try Arafinn? The developers are even thinking about further games or even comics or books. All on the condition that Nangrim is a success.
That sounds almost too ambitious and who knows if it will ever come to that. But I already know one thing: when Return to Nangrim comes out, I’ll be sitting in front of my PC with a fake beard and helmet. No matter what my friends think.
