In 2020 an award-winning British survival horror game dropped, Maid of Sker, that was re-released in 2021 on current-gen systems. Now, in 2022 we get the spiritual successor, Sker Ritual. But can this new entry live up to the name?
Gameplay
While some monsters may feel familiar, the game is nothing like Maid of Sker. Sker Ritual is very much a co-op survival game. Think Call of Duty: Zombies, but much more enjoyable! With that in mind, you can play either solo or with up to four others via online play. The game will scale the difficulty to the number of players – but be warned; this game is challenging!
The game starts with you being dragged to a coffin and awakened in a church courtyard with only a pistol and some money. Money is essential in this game as you need it to buy new weapons, respawn, ammo, and even unlock new areas. How do you get the money you might ask? Well, by killing monsters! Money management is crucial to survival, as buying ammo will be a regular occurrence. It’s also important to remember where the ammo stations are because you don’t want to get caught short. In terms of available weapons, there’s a decent selection of machine guns, shotguns, and more.
While the aim of the game is to survive increasingly difficult wave after wave of monster attacks, there are objectives to complete as well. This is loosely the story of the game. The first part sees you trying to deactivate generators. It took a while to realise there was a more extensive area to explore than the first church courtyard; it wasn’t until I found you could pay to open the door did I realise the vast wilderness beyond.
Monsters come in waves with a chime to signify a new wave incoming. They scale in difficulty and volume as you progress through the different rounds. The variety was good – both in terms of design and attacks. Ranged, quick, tanks, the game provides it all to face.
If you die, one of two things happens. With a respawn, you can ghost-walk to a coffin and revive yourself and carry on from where you left off. If you don’t, or if you’ve used it up, it’s game over.
In addition, you can get abilities that can help along the way, like poison or fire spells on your bullets. You also have a very useful lightning ability that helps when things are getting a bit much, and you need some AOE damage!
Visuals and Audio
Visually, Sker Ritual is beautiful. Terrifying and creepy but beautiful, nonetheless. The game looks great and gives a nice dark ambiance as you travel around. The effects also look great when you kill the monsters. As this game relies heavily on wave-based combat, the monsters themselves must be diverse enough to keep things interesting. From fast runners to beefy slow movers, from fire spitters to giant bosses with bowler hats… the variety is there.
When it comes to music and sound effects, it fits well with the overall atmosphere of the game. The fighting waves get intense with monster noises and gunfire and I can only imagine how epic it would look with a full roster of 4 players in co-op mode.
Game Structure
Sker Ritual is honestly a bargain. At the time of writing, the base price is £11.39/$14.99 on Steam which gives you access currently to the first level. The development team plan to add more chapters and other additional DLC in the form of cosmetics. From the press release, it appears that only cosmetics will require additional purchases. I’m not overly fond of in-game purchases, but with a price that low for the actual game (assuming there are no additional costs for chapters), I can’t blame them. It’s astonishingly good value!
Is Sker Ritual Good?
Sker Ritual is a fantastic survival horror game. While there’s not a whole lot of story, there is a fun challenge to try and survive wave after wave of attacking monsters. It’s creepy; you’ll jump when you get rushed from nowhere, and you’ll frantically try and find ammo to survive a little longer!
To find out more, head to the Wales Interactive website.
