Solo indie developer Niklas Hallin has announced the release date of the new retro-inspired Metroidvania Alruna and the Necro-Industrilaists. The pixel art title will launch on Steam on 26th Spetember 2024 but those wanting to try before they buy can download a demo now. The game follows Alruna, a forest-nymph who jumps, slides and dashes through sprawling subterranean labyrinths to get to the bottom of the story.

Alruna is a dryad in a dying world – a spirit of life in the land of the dead. The earth is sucked dry. There is only The Sprawl. Poor, bedraggled skele-men dot the Wasteland of the Necro-Industrialists and shuffle endlessly back and forth in a toiling mockery of life. But are they the real enemy? Or do the skeletons suffer just as much as the dryads under the domination of the Necro-Industrialists?

“Indie metroidvanias…”, developer Niklas Hallin says, “So often they have these long, horizontal corridors with repeated enemies, you know? In Alruna everything is packed super tight together. Everything is next to everything else. And with Alruna’s wild move-set, it’s really easy to just … skip whole parts of the game. Play it out of order. Break stuff. It’s insane. It’s … raw, you know? In a very old-school gaming, ROM-hack, kind of way.”