Sunken Realms launches today after spending six years building a dungeon that refuses to stay in the same order

Sunken Realms is scheduled to launch on Steam on September 18. It is priced at €16.99, with an additional 10 percent launch discount announced for its first two weeks.

Magic Puncher Games is the solo studio of Brad Warren, who has spent six years developing the project. More than 30,000 players had wishlisted the game before its final launch week.

The dungeon is hand made, but it refuses to keep the same floor plan

Aedaria contains 109 rooms spread across six distinct sections. Those rooms are not wholly generated by an algorithm: each one is individually authored.

What changes between runs is their arrangement. The game procedurally reorganises those spaces so each descent does not follow exactly the same route.

That distinction matters. Sunken Realms is trying to preserve the intentional detail of hand-built level design while borrowing some of the uncertainty of a roguelite structure.

Alric is not descending merely to fill an inventory

The protagonist is searching for his father, who entered Aedaria years earlier and never returned.

The underground city was cursed by the gods decades ago and has since developed a reputation for swallowing the adventurers reckless enough to enter it.

Story progression also happens between expeditions around the campfire, through a personal relationship between two friends. Warren cites Hades as one of the game's storytelling influences.

Every expedition feeds something back to the surface

Inside the dungeon, Alric uses melee and ranged weapons, learns forgotten spells and gathers gold, materials and equipment.

Back at camp, those resources become progression. Players can craft weapons and armour, cook food, brew potions, trade and improve statistics through the Soul Forge.

The next descent can then be attempted at a higher difficulty for more demanding fights and stronger rewards.

A build grows through more than random loot

Crafted equipment, learned magic and persistent upgrades gradually change what Alric can do.

Sunken Realms is not presenting itself as a roguelite where death erases almost every meaningful gain. Its structure instead revolves around repeated expeditions feeding longer-term progression at camp.

That places it somewhere between a traditional dungeon crawler and a modern run-based action game.

Outward, Zelda and Hades fit inside the same backpack

Warren identifies Outward as the game that originally inspired him to begin the project, particularly its sense of adventure and a large unknown waiting beyond the safe area.

The Legend of Zelda informs the feeling of exploration, while Hades can be seen in the decision to keep personal storytelling moving between repeated dungeon expeditions.

Sunken Realms has developed its own identity over six years, but those influences explain its unusual balance: a focused adventure borrowing roguelite ideas without trying to become an endless run generator.

The free demo disappears three days after launch

A free Steam demo remains available, but Magic Puncher Games plans to remove it on September 21.

Steam lists the full game as single-player only, with English currently the sole supported interface language.

No console version has been announced.

For something that spent six years underground, the final pitch is almost deliberately uncomplicated: no open world, no battle pass, just a dungeon that keeps rearranging itself and a son who wants to know why his father never came back.