Raw Fury and developer Christoffer Bodegard have revealed when players can expect Esoteric Ebb, a stylish fantasy CRPG that blends tabletop roleplaying flavor with a modern, choice-driven narrative. The game is slated to arrive in spring 2026 on Windows PC via Steam.
Set in a strange post-Arcanepunk world, Esoteric Ebb puts you in the role of The Cleric, a so-called “Cleric of Legends” who specializes in esoteric incidents and, more often than not, ends up acting like a glorified government enforcer. Built with a clear love for classic CRPG design and the sharp, conversational vibe of Disco-like storytelling, the experience leans heavily into deep, branching dialogue and an intimidating number of decisions that can reshape how your investigation unfolds.
The premise kicks off with urgency: just five days before the city’s first-ever election, a tea shop explodes in the center of town. You’re sent in to sort out the disaster, but things quickly spiral into the kind of unpredictable chaos only a tabletop campaign could conjure. You wake up in a morgue with half a river in your boots, surrounded by ten thousand rotting apples, multiple bodies, and a lone zombie. With no official support and no easy answers, you’re forced to dig into the city you call home and chase an impossible mystery that others would rather leave buried.
Norvik isn’t a typical fantasy setting. It’s a bustling metropolis of streets, towers, and underground tunnels where mythological creatures sell newspapers on street corners and ideologies echo like the last sermons of dead gods. Along the way, you’ll navigate factions, manipulate shifting alliances, and argue with an assortment of fantastical weirdos—think devils, drunk sphinxes, and countless other problems that refuse to be solved the same way twice. And looming over it all is a question that’s not just political background noise: what will you vote for in the election?
Esoteric Ebb’s biggest hook is how it turns roleplaying into consequence. Your choices aren’t cosmetic—they can come back to bite you later, whether you’re tackling open-ended quests, daring dungeoneering, or playing rival groups against each other for leverage. You can strive to become Norvik’s savior, push it toward collapse, or stumble into power through sheer audacity and poor judgment.
Dice rolls are central to the experience, capturing the tension and humor of a tabletop session. You’ll roll for everything from wrestling dwarves to stealing anything that isn’t nailed down, and even trying to avoid embarrassing yourself in conversation. Importantly, the game embraces the TTRPG truth that failing a roll can be more entertaining—and sometimes more revealing—than succeeding.
Much of the roleplay also happens inside your own head. Your Ability Stats aren’t quiet numbers on a sheet; they act like conflicting voices that interrupt conversations, argue over your next move, and steer you toward wonderfully ridiculous outcomes depending on which impulses you listen to.
As The Cleric, you’ll also wield reality-shaping magic designed for narrative creativity rather than simple combat dominance. That includes mind control for “fun and profit,” tracking down secrets hidden in the city’s depths or inside an enemy’s thoughts, and even speaking with the living or the dead—often just to hear what fresh insults they have for you.
Violence exists, but it’s treated as a last resort in Norvik. When combat does happen, encounters play out in turn-based fashion, with dice rolls deciding who survives and who doesn’t. Even then, Esoteric Ebb promises strange, offbeat solutions to problems, encouraging experimentation over brute force.
To keep the story’s complexity manageable, the game introduces a “Questing Tree,” a hybrid system that functions as a quest log, skill tree, and mind map. Each quest branch can take root in your mind, unlocking feats that meaningfully alter The Cleric’s playstyle and how future situations can be handled.
With its spring 2026 release window on PC, Esoteric Ebb is shaping up to be a promising pick for fans of story-rich isometric RPGs, tabletop-inspired dice mechanics, and choice-driven fantasy mysteries that aren’t afraid to get weird.
