The studio behind one of the best-looking ARPGs, which you probably forgot about, is back with a game that blends Diablo with Tarkov
Do you remember Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem? It’s a Diablo-like ARPG from a small indie team that came out in the D3-to-D4 drought. It spent years in Steam early access development, following a very successful Kickstarter campaign. It took so long, in fact, that many simply lost hope that it would actually come out resembling the initial promise.
Wolcen Studio, the team behind it, surprised everyone with a 1.0 release that took it out of limbo and into the spotlight, immediately making it one of Steam’s biggest launches in 2020. Though opinion has since turned on the game somewhat, mainly due to a series of post-launch updates, anyone who enjoyed Wolcen’s gameplay never stopped wondering if there’s more to that studio than just that game.
It is now 2025, and we have an answer.
This week, Wolcen Studio unveiled Project Pantheon, a new ARPG with an interesting twist. The developer calls it ExtrAction RPG, because a core component of the game is extracting, similar to shooters like Escape from Tarkov.
What this means in practice is that Pantheon’s gameplay will retain the same hack n’ slash action combat you know, but throw it into PvEvP situations, as you battle AI enemies while fending off other players.
The setting takes inspiration from several established fantasy worlds and historical mythologies. There’s no gameplay to watch right now (just the below teaser), but the Steam page does have a few very good-looking screenshots.
Project Pantheon is a free-to-play game that’s designed as a live service project. If you haven’t already clicked off the page, Wolcen Studio says it’s going to feature large, diverse maps and some valuable loot for players to fight over. It’s not clear whether you’ll be fighting over standard ARPG loot that other games give out naturally, or something a little more interesting.
Outside of the main extraction and action components, you’ll also be able to use some of those resources to upgrade your base, and even trade what you have no use for on the player market. The press release does reference Tarkov by name, so it’s clear what much of that is based on.
If any of that sounds intriguing, Project Pantheon is hosting two alpha tests very soon. The first takes place January 25-26, available only to players in Europe. Then, the weekend after that – February 1-2 – the second, North American leg of the test opens up. You can sign up on the official site right now for a chance to be selected.
Project Pantheon doesn’t have a release target yet, but more tests will be held this year, so keep an eye out.