The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline — a bit of a mouthful of a name — is a first-person psychological mystery thriller with narrative-driven gameplay, and it wastes no time setting a very specific tone.
Developed by One O One Games, The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox, reimagining Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy as a surreal, introspective narrative adventure.
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You play as Gabriele Alighieri — a man crushed beneath a legacy he never asked for. Every 33 years, the barrier between reality and Hell weakens, and to protect both his family and the world he knows, Gabriele must return to his ancestral Italian villa to perform a ritual and confront a destiny he’s spent his entire life trying to escape. What a life.
A Slow-Burn Experience With No Combat
Early on, I picked up a key and immediately got Resident Evil vibes — minus the combat. There’s no combat at all here, and everything moves at a controlled, deliberate pace. You can’t sprint through areas, but you do walk at a respectful speed, which forces you to sit with the environment rather than rush past it.
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As you begin exploring the mansion, the protagonist speaks to things around you and shares his inner thoughts. It keeps you on edge. When entering the basement, he muttered, “Always imagined a monster would jump out at me here…” — which is not what I wanted to hear.
It’s scary, but without leaning into outright horror. Instead, the game’s atmosphere does the heavy lifting, using suggestion and tension rather than jump scares. The demo features some wonderfully detailed environments, though interaction is fairly limited. I’d love to be able to examine more objects or pick up additional items — deeper interaction would go a long way in adding to the immersion.
Puzzle mechanics appear to be a core part of the experience, though the demo doesn’t really push them. The main objective is to find three statues to open a portal, simply placed around the mansion’s Hallway, Winter Garden, and Fumoir. There are also seven eerie diary pages to collect, which, once found, appear pinned to a board in the Fumoir room — there’s a larger mystery unfolding here.
Audio and Sound Design Impressions
Sound design is a real highlight. Rain on the rooftop can be heard throughout the home, it grows louder as you approach windows and fades as you move through corridors. As rain hits the glass roof of the Winter Garden it sounds distinctly different to other rooms. It’s subtle but adds a lot to the game’s immersion.
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There was a couple of technical hiccups — occasional focusing issues while looking around — but nothing major. Turning off motion blur fixed it for me. For a demo, the accessibility options are also surprisingly solid, including volume controls, the ability to disable head bobbing, subtitles with adjustable size, and background options.
Voice work is another standout. I’m not sure who the actors are, but the performances feel believable.
When Can You Play The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline?
The demo ends just as the mystery begins to open up — with a strange voice seemingly preparing to reveal itself — before cutting to black. It’s an abrupt stop, but an effective one.
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I’m intrigued enough to want to keep playing. You can check out the demo for yourself on Steam from February 19th. The game is also set to release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S this year.
Early access to the demo was granted to Quest Daily by the publisher.
