The ’90s were a goldmine of excellent dark fantasy games: Several of the Ultima games, numerous Might and Magic titles, Heretic/Hexen, Diablo 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, the list goes on. All of these titles, and many more, explored the darker side of fantasy gaming, with gritty imagery, dark storylines, conquered worlds burning in the grip of demonic influence; themes of loss, utter destruction, and omnipresent danger were commonplace in these titles.
While all boasted similar aesthetics and story tropes, another key element of these games was the use of dark, eerie keyboard/MIDI soundtracks to fully immerse players in these dark realms. The scores used by these games may seem unfashionable by today’s standards (even with regard to gaming), but it’s impossible not to note the profound impact on players that these composers had. One game which, as far as I can tell, mostly slipped through the cracks unnoticed by the larger community was Daemonsgate.
Daemonsgate is a dark fantasy roleplaying game released in 1993 on MS-DOS and was created by the now-defunct company Imagetec Design. The story begins in the city of Tormis, which is under siege by demonic hordes from beyond a portal called the Daemonsgate. You take the role of the main character, Gustavus, and must recruit a party to stop the demons from spilling into the world and break the siege. The gameplay was somewhat convoluted at times, but the score, composed by Ian Howe and Barry Leitch, was downright sublime. It may have been a simple, minimalistic 8-bit recording, but the soundtrack of Daemonsgate absolutely succeeded in evoking a sense of otherworldly immersion in the game. There is so much emotion breathing behind that tinny-sounding 8-bit mask; it’s easy to imagine yourself standing atop the flaming walls of Tormis, breathing the smoke of the ongoing siege, smelling the decay in the air, hearing the sky crackle with demonic lightning and bracing for death at any time.
Daemonsgate is considered abandonware nowadays, but you can still obtain the files from several different websites; additionally, it has been recently made available on Steam. I’m proud to say that I remember playing this game often as a child on my father’s first computer. It came on a set of floppy disks and had to be accessed via command line. I was young, but I never forgot any of it, from the impressive and daunting box art, to the lore in the thick players manual, and, of course, the original soundtrack, which to this day makes me yearn for my old days of playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends back in high school on Friday nights.
I never could figure out how to escape the city of Tormis back then, but I’ll never forget how heavy and dark this game’s atmosphere was and how it made me feel to play it. I still listen to the Daemonsgate soundtrack to this day. For fans of early RPG gaming, dark fantasy, dungeon synth.
Listen below:
Towers of Rust 