This just in: The Temple Of… is unfinished – both the name, and the full release, which was expected at the end of January. With that in mind, this compilation of similar matching words is a preview of the Early Access build, as it’s been delayed for a couple of months.
Which is a bit of a relief.
Like a dog with two tails, I installed this on the Steam Deck, tucked myself into a warm bed and got ready for a portable FPS. Alas, it would not play the opening cutscene, then shortly after that, a grumpy, unwilling-to-collaborate black rectangle filled the play area, forcing the laptop to get a look-in.
Perhaps that was a sign, as first impressions weren’t good. The Temple Of is Early Access, so we can forgive quite a few teething problems, such as gamepad support not being great. However, when you can’t interact with anything properly with either the controller, keyboard or mouse, it’s time to rethink.
The premise of the game is a rogue-like dungeon crawler with FPS elements. As a procedurally generated game, no playthrough is the same, but arguably, the sentiment is frustration. It’s rare to play a tutorial twice due to being unable to proceed with the task at hand, seeing back-to-front text (still readable), or passing through various textures and flickering terrains. That bit? Not so good.
In fear of my AMD graphics card playing up, though very capable, I switched out for my trusty, dusty desktop with an Nvidia card, and still, there were issues. I was about to start with “to be honest”, but that is the default for all these write-ups: I didn’t like The Temple Of in its current state, and, with plenty of other titles up for review etc, there’s only so many times you can give it a chance.
At this stage, I’m going to leave this hanging for a bit and come back to it at a later date. The current plan is for this to come out of Early Access in a couple of months, and based on my playing experience, I may just wait until then and give it another go then.
In the meantime, look at a few of the Steam reviews and accompanying videos as others got on with it better than I did.
