From merchant to monk. This survival game promised everything, but the ambitious goal proved too much for its creators

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The Black Death, a devastating plague in the 1300s, had a massive impact on nearly all of the medieval world. This epidemic, believed to have originated in China and spread westward along the Silk Road, affected Europe, Asia, and North Africa. While not a common theme in video games, some developers have attempted to portray this historical event.

The Black Death in video games

The A Plague Tale games were very successful, blending historical realism with fantasy. However, the team at Syrin and Small Impact Games aimed for a greater degree of realism in their own game, which is set in a dark and devastated medieval world suffering from an epidemic.

Despite their best efforts, the team couldn’t finish their ambitious game, known as The Black Death. While a full release never happened, players did get a chance to play a demo and see what the developers had created. Let’s revisit the game’s original promises and compare them to the final product.

Medieval struggle for survival

The Black Death was planned as an online multiplayer game where players would explore an open world. It would have included role-playing features, challenges to survive, a way to create items, the ability to buy and build structures, and a changing day and night cycle.

The game let us experience the action from an outside viewpoint, allowing us to play as characters with different jobs like guards, merchants, farmers, blacksmiths, monks, or hunters. Our chosen profession would then define the abilities we used throughout the game.

We weren’t meant to be defined by our jobs. The game allows players who prefer a peaceful life to focus on things like farming, healing, or research. But the developers also wanted to give players the option to choose a more criminal path and make money by taking advantage of others – it wasn’t designed to restrict that possibility.

The game aimed for exciting, fast-paced combat that rewarded skillful movement and carefully timed attacks. To enhance this, it was also intended to allow up to 50 players to share the game world alongside computer-controlled characters.

Risk of infection

I highlighted the game’s focus on survival because the “Black Death” in the title wasn’t just for show. The plague would actually affect how the game is played. Players could get sick in several ways: by helping beggars, touching corpses, or even by interacting with other players who were infected.

If you caught the plague in the game, you’d immediately feel sick – things like vomiting and extreme fatigue during any activity. You’d also see visual signs of the illness. If these symptoms appeared, you’d need to rush to the monks for treatment. Otherwise, your character would die, and you’d have to start the game from the beginning – a permanent and severe consequence.

Players say “I’m checking”

That’s the basic idea, but now let’s look at how the Black Death actually happened. One of our editors recently reviewed a draft of this book and gave it a very critical assessment. He described the early version as full of problems and visually unappealing.

The game, developed by Syrin and Small Impact Games, was originally planned to be built in Unreal Engine 4, but the developers struggled with the software. This led to some unusual features in the first playable version, such as:

The game suffers from blurry graphics, unattractive environments, and blocky buildings. The water looks incredibly dated, even by old standards. Character models are uninspired clones, their movements are jerky and unnatural, and the world feels empty and repetitive overall.

The game wasn’t enjoyable to play. Even with all the developer’s promises, the only things you could do were talk to characters and steal from them, with no consequences. The fighting was also problematic, featuring glitches and clunky movements.

Saving the situation and the next try

The Black Death first became available on PC in April 2016 as an Early Access game. Recognizing the game wasn’t ready for players, the developers quickly started working on improvements. While this led to “mixed” reviews on Steam, it wasn’t enough to ensure the game’s long-term success. After roughly five years, the developers stopped updating and supporting the project. Surprisingly, despite no longer being available for purchase, a small number of players still enjoy The Black Death according to SteamDB.

Following the unsuccessful launch of *The Black Death*, Syrin Studios stopped developing games. In contrast, Small Impact Studios recovered and created Marauders, an online space pirate shooter that became available in Early Access on Steam in 2022. However, as of September 2025, it appears that Marauders has also been abandoned by its developers, despite a promising start.

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2025-09-28 23:03