Developer ONE-O-ONE GAMES, the developers of the incredibly divisive Suicide of Rachel Foster, is back with a new experience. The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline is a modern interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. I myself am not familiar with this piece of work, but I was still actually interested in trying out this game. 

The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline follows Gabriele on a quest into The Dive to complete a ritual to seal the gates of Hell. As he uncovers his family’s history as Dante’s descendant, a mysterious voice known as the Ancestor guides him, speaking in riddles and revealing only half-truths.

Well, can’t say it doesn’t look striking.

The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline starts off with a simple yet engaging premise. However, before you are really allowed to delve deeper into the characters and motivations, Gabriele speaks to both his ancestor and his wife, but it never really has time to develop. By the time something interesting actually happens, the game is pretty much over. 

Most of the game involves exploring incredibly small environments, listening to exposition dumps, and then solving a puzzle to unlock the next door. Repeat this for three to four hours, and you have The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline. There’s no tension in the environment, no build-up to any horror, not even a forced creature encounter that might have broken up the tedium of listening to the uninteresting dialogue and lacklustre story. 

Thankfully, the puzzles are for the most part reasonably well crafted. It forces you to pay attention to environmental clues, often times having logical solutions. Although, some of the later puzzles have obtuse solutions that can be slightly annoying. Unfortunately, that’s the extent of The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline‘s gameplay, and I would have accepted the tedious gameplay if the story was compelling, like it was in Martha is Dead. 

The puzzle’s are this game’s highlight.

The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline‘s interpretation of Hell is surprisingly creative and well-realised. However, its narrow scope and lack of meaningful exploration make it feel empty and hollow. I wanted to go further into the world, but there’s just nothing there. To make matters worse, the PC performance is awful. Even with the game’s incredibly limited scope, I would often tank into the low 30s, making the game feel sluggish and ugly at times. 

The voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag. While there’s some solid line delivery, especially from the Ancestor, Gabriele is just hamming it up and making constantly whiny remarks, and I couldn’t take him seriously as a character. The soundtrack adds a little to the ambiance, but doesn’t stand out much. 

The only bit of variety that Dante’s Circle has.

The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline is an underwhelming experience; one that actually had a lot of potential, but is let down by a short runtime that doesn’t let the players immerse themselves in the story. Whilst there are some solid puzzles here and an interesting visual design, there isn’t a lot of it. 

The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. 

Reviewed on PC with an RTX 4070, Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 32GB RAM. 

A copy of The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline was provided by the publisher.