Info about Avernum 4: Greed and Glory:

Official game description:
Started in 1994, the cult-classic Avernum series is one of the great video game sagas! In this epic fantasy role-playing adventure, you explore and conquer an enormous underworld. Battle through huge dungeons, fight unique and cunning foes, collect, create, and bless hundreds of different artifacts, and enjoy a really good story.
Avernum is a nation underground. Kept alive by the courage and magic of its inhabitants, it stretches through many hundreds of miles of caverns, mines, and labyrinths. It is a wild frontier, attracting adventurers, explorers, brigands, and monsters, all racing to claim the wealth and knowledge in its caves.
You have come to the wild edges of the known underworld with your own goals. (Wealth? Freedom? Conquest?) Once there, you found disaster. Many powerful forces hunger for the riches of the underworld. Swarms of beasts attack. Cities fall into ruin. Your bad luck: You're the one who might save Avernum from its crisis. Can you do it? And what will you take as your reward?
Avernum 4: Greed and Glory features:
*   Epic, turn-based fantasy adventure in a gigantic world, full of interesting characters, clever dungeons, and quests both grim and funny.
*   Open-ended story, with multiple factions who plead for (or buy) your support. Practice politics with monsters and choose whether to bring a happy peace or a profitable disaster.
*   Complex, open-ended game system full of tactical options and ways to build your party. Well over 100 abilities, traits, spells, and other ways to gain power.
*   A unique fantasy world packed with lore, humor, and history. Not your standard elves and orcs.
Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is the beginning of Avernum's Great Trials Trilogy, and experience with previous Avernum games is completely unnecessary. This is a remaster of the original cult-classic, Avernum 4, which came out in 2005, and features a greatly expanded story and tons of new dungeons, characters, and quests.

Release date: Oct 22, 2025

Categories: Turn-based Strategy, RPG, Exploration, Dungeon Crawler, Single-player Story, Character Customization, Party-based Combat, Tactical Combat


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Exceptional Remake & Series Evolution (weight 0.99): Reviewers laud the game as an outstanding remake, significantly improving upon the original with a substantial graphics overhaul, new content (areas, bosses, NPCs), and a superior, seamless interface. It's considered the finest iteration in the Avernum series, refreshing for returning fans, and a strong starting point for newcomers, despite some finding the updated graphics style to still be simple.
- Vast & Rewarding Exploration (weight 0.67): Players praise the game's extensive and detailed world, filled with hidden locations, secrets, and a seamless open map. The sheer volume of content, including side quests and optional areas, encourages methodical exploration and offers many hours of gameplay.
- Authentic Classic CRPG Experience (weight 0.51): The game is celebrated for its faithful adherence to old-school isometric CRPG design, offering a pure, story-driven, and tactical turn-based combat experience. It successfully blends retro sensibilities with modern quality-of-life enhancements.
- Engaging & Adaptable Gameplay (weight 0.5): Gameplay is described as smooth, intuitive, and engaging, offering depth in character builds and meaningful customization options. The inclusion of varied difficulty settings ensures a challenging yet enjoyable experience for all players, while combat can be surprisingly fast-paced.
- High-Quality Writing & Lore (weight 0.46): The game features superb writing, dialogue, and lore, enriched with humor and nuanced characters. This strong narrative craftsmanship creates an immersive and lively world, making the extensive reading enjoyable and adding significant depth.
- Consistent Developer Quality (weight 0.32): Players consistently praise Spiderweb Software for reliably producing high-quality, story-heavy, old-school RPGs. The developer's work is seen as a 'love letter' to the genre, with this game being another strong entry or even their best work to date.

Common complaints:
- Clunky UI and controls (weight 0.31): Players find the user interface and controls outdated and clunky, leading to frustrating experiences with basic interactions like menu navigation, input customization, and general usability. This includes issues with keyboard targeting, mouse interaction, and a general lack of quality-of-life features.
- Significant language barrier (weight 0.25): The game presents a substantial amount of English text and dense lore, making it challenging for non-English speakers to engage with the narrative and understand concepts. The lack of translations, particularly French, and the absence of voice acting further hinder accessibility and comprehension for a significant portion of players.
- Inadequate map features (weight 0.23): Players express dissatisfaction with the current map system, missing a traditional overworld map and finding the in-game map barebones. Specific complaints include the map only filling when hovered over, the lack of annotated markers, and the absence of a zoomed-out overview, which negatively impacts navigation and quest tracking.
- Opaque game mechanics (weight 0.18): The game suffers from a lack of transparency regarding its core mechanics, making it difficult for players to understand how stats and traits contribute to their build. Explanations are often incomplete, and derived stats are not explicitly stated, leading to frustration when trying to optimize characters or understand damage output and difficulty balancing.
- Poor visual scaling (weight 0.18): The game's graphics are considered outdated by some, and the UI scaling options exacerbate this issue by making text and game elements blurry or 'mushy.' This impacts readability and overall visual quality, especially for players trying to adjust display size, and the graphics themselves are seen as basic.
- Flawed gameplay elements (weight 0.18): Several specific gameplay elements are criticized for their poor implementation or lack of impact. This includes a boring and unrewarding stealing system, unengaging cone AoE spells, and a general lack of valuable loot. Additionally, the absence of a crucial wall-breaking spell in certain situations proved infuriating for players.
- Story progression unclear (weight 0.17): Some players report the main storyline as perfunctory or difficult to follow, occasionally getting stuck and unsure how to progress. This can be exacerbated by potential bugs where advancing too far ahead in side activities might disrupt the main questline's flow.
- Platform-specific technical bugs (weight 0.16): Players reported various technical issues specific to their hardware or platform. These include difficulties adapting to the controls on Steam Deck due to the lack of physical keyboard/mouse, inconsistent or incorrect mouse click registration on M2 Mac systems, and noticeable game freezes that occur during autosaves and when loading new areas.

Gameplay feedback:
- Deep Tactical Combat (weight 0.35): Combat is fully turn-based and highly tactical, combining physical attacks with diverse priest and mage spells. Players must strategically use buffs/debuffs, bottleneck enemies, scout enemy defenses (R-click), stack resistances, and adapt to challenging encounters, as some bosses change resistances. Speed affects turn order.
- Flexible Character Building (weight 0.32): Players create and customize a party of adventurers, where race choices offer distinct advantages beyond appearance. 'Classes' are more like initial skill packages, allowing for highly flexible builds (e.g., archers with lockpicking). Strategic party composition and skill allocation are key, with options for diverse roles.
- Key Gameplay Mechanics & QoL (weight 0.25): The game maintains an older UI but is functional on modern systems. Important tips include frequent saving, stealing everything not nailed down, not sparing consumables, and utilizing keyboard shortcuts. Players also have choices in interacting with the world, including non-combat options.
- Diverse Spell & Skill Use (weight 0.16): The game offers a wide array of priest and mage spells for both combat and utility, which are generally well-tuned and balanced. Spells must be purchased from NPC trainers, and strategic use of specific lore skills and powerful spells like acid is crucial. AOE spells are available but not early.

Performance notes:
- Excellent Steam Deck compatibility (weight 0.09): Players confirm the game's Windows port runs perfectly on Steam Deck using Proton 9.0-4. This includes smooth performance with external monitors and peripherals, highlighting strong out-of-the-box compatibility.
- Brief freezes during loads/saves (weight 0.06): Players experienced momentary freezes or stutters during autosave events and when loading into new game areas. This suggests minor performance hitches related to asset loading or data saving operations.

Recommendations:
- Highly Recommended for Fans (weight 0.6): Players who enjoy Spiderweb Software's previous titles, particularly the Avernum series, will find this game a strong recommendation. It maintains the expected quality and genre characteristics that fans appreciate.
- Strong Classic RPG Appeal (weight 0.4): This game strongly appeals to fans of old-school Western cRPGs, offering deep exploration, immersive world-building, and engaging tactical turn-based combat. It delivers the depth and mechanics genre enthusiasts seek.
- Mixed Price Perception (weight 0.19): A small subset of reviews included mentions of refunds or perceived high cost, such as 'only for fans with too much money.' This indicates a minor concern about value or pricing for a few players, though generally positive.
- Substantial Content, Good Value (weight 0.19): Players can expect over 50 hours of immersive gameplay, making it a substantial experience. Coupled with generally high ratings, it's seen as the definitive version, offering good value for its price.
- English Language Prerequisite (weight 0.06): A significant number of players recommend the game, but strongly emphasize that a good understanding of English is necessary. This points to a potential lack of localization for other languages.
- Try Demo, Await Sales (weight 0.04): Prospective players are advised to try the available demo before purchasing to confirm satisfaction. Some also recommend waiting for new release price drops or annual sales for better value.

Other player notes:
- Niche, text-heavy RPG experience (weight 0.18): Players appreciate Spiderweb's unique approach, likening their games to interactive fantasy novels with deep tactical combat. This style caters to those who prioritize lore and gameplay over cutting-edge graphics or extensive character dialogue, appealing to a specific niche in the RPG genre.
- Decades of fan loyalty (weight 0.14): The series evokes strong nostalgia, with many players having followed the developer since its early days (e.g., Exile series, original Avernum 4). This long-standing connection highlights a dedicated fanbase that has appreciated the developer's consistent work over many years.
- Engine hinders modernization efforts (weight 0.12): There's a sentiment that the custom-built game engine might be limiting the series' potential for modernization, contrasting with outdated aspects of original games. Suggestions include considering open-source alternatives like Godot and leveraging AI for text translation, coupled with concerns that the remake might have been rushed.
- Current game's price point (weight 0.06): One player noted a significant difference in price compared to the original Avernum 4, which could influence value perception for long-time fans. This feedback is limited and may reflect a historical comparison rather than a direct complaint about the current price.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.33): Players expressed satisfaction due to the high quality of the remake, which successfully modernized the game while maintaining its old-school CRPG essence. Key factors included excellent writing, a compelling story, detailed world-building, nuanced characters, deep tactical combat, and extensive content offering great replayability and value. The consistent quality of the developer and smooth performance on platforms like Steam Deck also contributed to this positive emotion.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.09): Enjoyment stemmed from the game's engaging core gameplay, particularly its exploration and tactical depth, which provided a rewarding progression loop. Players also appreciated the superb writing, immersive world, extensive hidden content, and the game's overall old-school CRPG feel with improved balance and aesthetics.
- Disappointment (weight 0.08): Disappointment arose from specific mechanical issues such as repetitive consumables and unclear spell ranges, alongside a general lack of modern quality-of-life features, including an outdated UI, basic graphics, and missing an overworld map. Players also felt disappointed by the perceived lack of significant innovation across remakes and issues with text readability, which hindered their ability to fully engage with the game.
- Frustration (weight 0.07): Frustration was primarily driven by significant technical and UI issues, including resolution and control problems, blurry magnification, and a cumbersome interface with problematic keybindings and an inefficient inventory. Players also expressed frustration with specific tedious mechanics like travel without teleport pylons, unclear systems, a lack of mechanical transparency, and critical bugs preventing story progression. The absence of a French translation for the extensive text also caused significant language barrier issues.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.07): Enthusiasm stemmed from the game's captivating and immersive nature, which led to strong recommendations. Players were particularly excited by the depth of exploration, rich world-building, compelling writing, and extensive character depth. The remake's superior design, often considered the definitive version of a classic, and the anticipation for future titles from the developer also contributed to this strong positive emotion.
- Excitement (weight 0.05): Excitement was generated by the anticipation of continued exploration and discovering hidden content, as well as significant improvements in the remaster, such as a substantial graphics overhaul and new spell/ability menus. Players also found the game's phenomenal world-building, fantastic writing, and challenging combat highly engaging, feeling drawn into the high-quality CRPG experience.
- Appreciation (weight 0.05): Appreciation focused on the consistent quality and innovation of Spiderweb Software, particularly their decades-long commitment to producing enjoyable CRPGs at fair prices. Players also appreciated the game's significant improvements and additions over the original, its solid overall quality, and specific elements like the humor in its extensive writing, attention to small details, and the depth of its world-building.
- Admiration (weight 0.05): Admiration was directed towards the developer's skill, consistent quality, and long-standing dedication to old-school CRPGs, especially their innovative approach to remakes. Players lauded the game as a 'masterwork' in its genre, highlighting its superb writing, lively world, top-notch dialogue and lore, and the impressive achievement for a small studio in crafting such an immersive and rich narrative experience.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy was expressed through the overall pleasure of getting lost in the game's rich world, its great storytelling, and the fun, flexible battles. Players cherished the game's charming aesthetic, joyful humor, and relaxing yet addictive mechanics, often likening it to the greatest CRPG fun since beloved classics and evoking a long-standing love for the series.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.03): Nostalgia was primarily triggered by the game's return to stat-heavy roots and its familiar feel, reminiscent of the beloved Exile series and old-school RPGs from the mid-90s. Players cherished revisiting familiar caves and the storyline they had experienced since its shareware days, finding comfort in the game's ability to transport them back to a cherished era of gaming.
- Love (weight 0.03): Love for the game stemmed from a deep affection for Spiderweb Software titles and the rich world of Avernum, including its lore, history, and humor. Players expressed love for the game's great plot and old-school style, appreciating how it offered a fresh yet familiar and enjoyable experience with improved gameplay and graphics after many hours of play.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): Engagement was a direct result of the game's super engaging flow and its addictive system, which was easy to understand yet offered significant depth. Players felt totally hooked and deeply immersed in the game's world, finding it hard to stop playing.
- Loyalty (weight 0.01): Loyalty was a testament to players having followed Spiderweb Software games for thirty years, often since childhood, consistently appreciating the developer's enduring quality and dedication to their craft.
- Amazement (weight 0.01): Amazement was expressed regarding the game's astounding scope and the sheer expanse of its content, coupled with the impressive realization that its quality was as high, if not superior, to the original title.
- Encouragement (weight 0.01): Encouragement stemmed from players' strong desire for others to experience the game and the developer's work, particularly appreciating how the game actively promoted and rewarded exploration, extensive world-building, and player experimentation.
- Gratitude (weight 0.01): Gratitude was directed towards Spiderweb Software and Jeff Vogel for their continued commitment to releasing high-quality indie games, especially for providing enjoyable experiences at accessible, low prices.
- Comfort (weight 0.01): Comfort was found in the Avernum/Exile series being a familiar and reliable "comfort game" for players. The remake specifically evoked strong nostalgic feelings from their childhood, providing a sense of warmth and familiarity.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Anticipation was driven by players' eagerness to discover new quests and complete the current story, alongside a strong desire to see and play future releases from the development team.
- Impressment (weight 0.01): Impressment resulted from the significant updates made to the game engine and the overall quality and substantial improvements of the remaster when compared to its original version.
- Approval (weight 0): Approval was given because the game successfully delivered a good remake, particularly in its quality and execution when compared directly to the original title.}