The Philistine Review

A charming callback to the days of Morrowind.

I love weird, strange games. The weirder the better, and boy, is The Lantern of the Laughless Saint one of the weirdest games I’ve played in 2026. It doesn’t even hide what inspired it, proudly declaring that it was inspired by Morrowind. Immediately, I know what that means. Jank, strange lore, and great atmosphere.

Does The Lantern of the Laughless Saint actually fulfill their promise? Let’s break it down. Firstly, the jank. Is the game a janky mess? Could NerveLabs (the developers of the game) be happy to hear that their game is janky? I imagine they would be! Does it have strange lore? You betcha. How about the atmosphere? It does tend to lean on the old Morrowind stuff heavily, as the island you’re on has a strange landscape, but it doesn’t detract from the experience.

I admit I broke my rule with this game. I played it for four hours. Two hours with Jason Mulhall, a contributor for The Philistine Review, and two hours solo. While playing multiplayer, Jason complained that he was overly laggy. We don’t have that issue with other video games, so it might be related to The Lantern of the Laughless Saint. When Jason first joined my game, he came in without a character. The game generated one for him.

Character creation is rather simple. There aren’t a lot of options within the game. We have: The Umbrites (White Human), the Al-Fijhani (Black Humans who benefit from…lockpicking. What did the devs mean by this?), the Ruggites (Humans with a pink glow, focusing on magic), the Thrakh (Lizardmen with more carry weight but less archery skill), the Calyx (cat men, who don’t do well swimming), and the Uruhan (giant bears that are good with unarmed and carrying things, not so good with magic or sneaking).

Apart from picking your race and a handful of appearance traits, you don’t “tag” skills similar to the old-school RPGs. Instead, you can level everything you want. Even if you played an Uruhan, you could be a stealth character. With Jason, I picked a Ruggite. Magic was very powerful. When I was solo, I went with an Al-Fijhani archer. Archery was strong, but not as strong as magic.

And you know what? That’s a good thing. Not everything needs to be balanced. If I want to roleplay as an archer in a strange world, I should be allowed to.

The story starts off simply enough. You’re on a boat with no memories. You see this vision of the Laughless Saint, and when you wake up you’re on a beach. A crazy man tells you that he also sees the visions, and to follow the giant stone torches to the tower. There you will learn who the Laughless Saint is.

The only problem? The entire tower is full of difficult monsters to battle. So, when you go into town you explore around. The characters are voice-acted, which is an improvement over Morrowind. They’re voice-acted well, and it didn’t take me out of the game. I found the voices charming, with that old quality shine that many RPGs are lacking.

There are many quests in the game. Some are relatively simple (collect peaches, find my lost bag, etc.). Others are more complicated (the main story, investigating a talking well, etc.). There is a lot of charm to the quests, which definitely reminded me of Morrowind. Not every quest has to be so grand; sometimes you just need to collect peaches.

Combat is fast-paced and janky, as can be expected. I was able to kill pretty much anything as a mage and archer. You can position yourself in weird ways to cheese a monster. I was able to do this pretty much throughout my playthroughs. It doesn’t have the same “dice-roll” mechanic that Morrowind had, and it’s closer to Oblivion instead.

You do have levels and can put points into skills in your character sheet. You also get perks, one of my favourites being the perk that increases your speed. “Oh, that sounds fun!” I can hear you saying. Oh no, you only GET that benefit as long as you’re naked. Your character becomes a nudist.

The atmosphere is great for what it wants to be. A strange land with strange people. Some of the folk you encounter are normal, and others are stark raving mad. You’re one of the “mad ones” yourself, since you see visions of the Saint and want to visit his tower. Some NPCs do not like that very much, and openly mock you as a lunatic.

The world is full of ruins, frogmen, and strange blind creatures that attack you in the jungle and run off at the speed of light. All of this adds to the charm of the game. Will everyone like it? Of course not. If you want a polished RPG with balanced skills, a straightforward story, quest markers, etc. – this game isn’t for you. It’s not as brutal as some are letting on though. Fast travel does exist (as do teleportation spells), and it was easy enough that I could play it.

There is an issue with the game. The price. Currently it is $23.99 CAD for the base price, and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. I’m a bit tight with my wallet, and I place this game in the “Upper Tier” of indie dev games. If you demand a premium price for your game, players are going to expect something good.

So, is it good? If you’re me, yes, it’s good. I like those old-style janky RPGs, weird stories, and a unique experience. So, I guess I’ll pay the premium to play a niche game that appeals to maybe a couple thousand people at most.

Review:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⬛ – Core Gameplay
Plenty of quests, areas to explore, and things to do. The core gameplay is solid for what it wants to be. Could it have made the skill system more janky and old-school? Absolutely. However, I think NerveLabs was attempting to strike a balance between the old and new.

⭐⭐⬛⬛⬛ – Replayability
I’m not much for replaying RPGs. The only ones that ever interested me in replayability were Elder Scrolls games, since there is so much to do in them. This game lacks that.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⬛ – Atmosphere
A fantastic part of the game. Great music, eerie noises, and the world-building is great. I like the ruins, the tavern shaped out of an ancient beast’s skull, and the general vibe of the game.

Overall Score: 6.6/10