Asterigos: Curse of the Stars

Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is a 2022 action RPG developed by Acme Gamestudio and published by tinyBuild, released October 11, 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It holds a Metacritic score of 76 on PS5, 75 on Xbox Series X|S, and 73 on PC, and was the debut project from a small Taiwanese studio building its first game around a genre most now call “Soulslike” but that several reviewers at the time described more specifically as “Soulslite” — the genre’s structural bones with a noticeably faster, more forgiving combat pace layered on top.

Its setting is a genuine point of difference in a crowded field of mythology-inspired action RPGs: rather than committing to one ancient culture, Aphes, the game’s central cursed city, is built explicitly as a blend of both Greek and Roman architecture, myth, and enemy design at once.

Technical Specifications

A Debut From Former Blizzard and X-Legend Developers

Acme Gamestudio was founded in Taiwan in 2016 by developers with backgrounds at Blizzard and X-Legend, building a compact team of roughly two dozen people — six designers, six engineers, and twelve artists and animators — for what became their first shipped project. The studio partnered with publisher tinyBuild in April 2022, roughly six months before launch, to secure the funding and distribution support needed to bring the game to five platforms simultaneously, a significant undertaking for a studio of this size on its debut release.

Hilda and the City of Aphes

Players control Hilda, a warrior of the Northwind Legion sent to investigate an expedition team, including her father, that vanished while investigating the cursed city of Aphes — a city-state frozen in time for a thousand years, its architecture and inhabitants drawing equally from classical Greek and ancient Roman design. The story is told largely through environmental documents, recovered dialogue, and Hilda’s own illustrated diary, which updates with sketches and observations as she uncovers the truth behind the curse and Aphes’ political history.

Pick Two of Six

Combat is built around a talent system letting players choose two of six available weapon types — sword and shield, dual blades, spear, hammer, staff, or magic bracelets — and freely swap between them mid-fight, encouraging players to mix a defensive option with an offensive one, or lean into a specific playstyle entirely. Against roughly 60 enemy types and 22 distinct bosses, the combat trades some of the genre’s usual punishing precision for a faster, more forgiving rhythm — a choice reviewers frequently connected to the “Soulslite” label, treating the game as an accessible on-ramp for players intimidated by tougher genre entries rather than a challenge aimed at series veterans.

Reception

Console reviews landed in “generally favorable” territory while the PC version scored more mixed, according to Metacritic’s own aggregate breakdown — a gap OpenCritic’s lower 54% recommendation rate reflected as well. Critics consistently praised the game’s visual polish and city design for a studio’s first release, along with a story reviewers found more engaging than expected, even if it ultimately settled into familiar beats rather than any major twist. The most common criticisms were a lack of overall polish for a full-priced release: inconsistent voice acting quality between scenes, boss fights several reviewers found surprisingly easy compared to the genre’s reputation, and exploration that could feel emptier and more prone to backtracking than the detailed environments around it suggested.

Where to Play It Today

Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is available on Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox One/Series X|S, and has been featured periodically in the PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscription catalogs since launch.