KIND OF SOULS-LIKE STEALTH?

An interesting unique take on the real-time tactical stealth genre coming from The Games Kitchen,
the same team that brought us Blasphemous in 2019. This time around, they deliver us a game
that is very ambitious, possibly too ambitious.
An amalgamation of systems interacted with
and experienced via a beautiful presentation
of an 18th-century Spanish Monastery.

A game seemingly carrying Blasphemous DNA in it, a souls-like, into a real-time tactical stealth game, somehow. Also, a game capable of both charming and boring its players. The Stone of Madness is
a unique game in its own right, giving, confusing, and leaving you wanting.

Reviewe By: Sabber & Aziz
Published On: 16 Jan 2026

RATING

GAMEPLAY

STEALTH

ARTSTYLE

STORY

GAME INFO

GENRE:

Real-time tactical stealth

DEVELOPER:

The Game Kitchen

PLATFORM:

PC, XBOX X/S, PS5, NS

RELEASE DATE:

January 29, 2025

Making an impressive setup!

The story takes place in a Spanish Monastery during the 18th-century. You have a team
of 4 characters besides the protagonist.
In a loadout style, you choose 3 of them to play for the day. The protagonist arrives at the monastery as a guest.

He becomes a prisoner for asking too many questions upon realizing the corruption at
the monastery. He teams up with some friends he conveniently met, for them to
work together towards uncovering
the monastery’s dark mysteries.

It is an isometric-style game is presented to you through beautiful art likely handmade. Expressing a dark and gritty atmosphere of control and despair. Soundtrack and most
of the game sound design well support
the atmosphere and art style.

Some really good ideas

The Stone of Madness incorporates many game systems in itself, and some work very well.
Each character has its own unique abilities
and phobias, and you often find yourself in
need to team up those characters in order
to get somewhere or something.

There exists an ability tree where more abilities can be unlocked for each character; those abilities are worth getting. They evolve its
gameplay just enough to not change it,
but have an easier time progressing.

The different levels are open freeroam spaces, which enable the player, most of the time,
the option of more than one approach.

At the end of each in-game day, you return to
a base-type area. There, each character can perform unique actions, helping you prepare
for the following day. The number of actions
is limited, adding an interesting form of
strategy and resource management.

Does it hate me?

Almost all the time, the game feels punishing. You are constantly managing sanity,
health and suspicion stats alongside resources.
Some sanity is lost at the end of each day,
on normal difficulty and above.

Phobias of each character drain their respective sanity level, which will unlock a new phobia for the character you have to deal with upon hitting zero. New phobias make managing sanity even harder, with some by a lot more.

If a character evades capture, its suspicion level is raised. Usually when caught, you will simply respawn in a safe zone. But if the suspicion for
the caught character is at max, it will be sent back to your jail cell.

Ending up locked out of a character for the rest of the day, which you might need to progress. Security level also increases the more you are caught. Which results in more guards patrolling and dealing with traps.

Its doing too much!

Health is lost upon capture and hitting traps. If a character’s health reaches zero it goes into recovery, being locked out for a day. These systems, on their own, are fine but together they require lots of consideration and planning. Especially when you would need a certain character to progress.

The game is clunky, with some inconsistent hitboxes. Character switching can benefit from refinement, you can not control more than one at a time. Combining that with no manual saving and resource management struggles, a game that is of trial and error
in nature starts dragging.

Where it often starts feeling very obtuse,
or it would feel like a monotonous chore
to play. It is worth mentioning that there
is a kind of hidden menu for difficulty customization options. I only found out
about it by chance while watching
a video.

Definitely not vanilla

The Stone of Madness is a unique indie game with lots of character. It tries to find its way
and be something. It shows lots of potential
in a number of areas. But it also struggles
knowing what it wants to be exactly.

It sometimes feels like it is trying too much, throwing a bunch of things at you that do
not synergize that well.

With a story that does not bother enough with logic and development, just there to direct progression mainly. The Stone of Madness
is a decisive game that is very punishing
for its players.

The game almost feels like an experimental project, one that is not very cohesive.
It feels a lot like it is a niche kind of
game, for its niche player.