A new open-world co-op RPG called Dimraeth just showed up on Steam, and the reception's been good. It's sitting around 80% Very Positive, which for launch week, when review scores are usually at their angriest, is a genuinely strong start.

Dimraeth mixes open-world exploration with RPG progression and base-building, all playable in co-op. That's a lot of systems wearing each other's clothes, and it's the exact combination that either clicks beautifully or collapses under its own ambition. Apparently it's clicking. Players are praising the world design and the way base-building feeds back into the adventuring loop instead of sitting next to it like a separate menu.

If you've been around long enough, the pitch might sound familiar. It's the Secret of Mana dream, really, a big RPG you tackle with friends, except modern hardware finally lets the world stay open and persistent instead of snapping you into a shared screen where one player wanders off and drags the camera through a wall. I sank entire weekends into that kind of forced-cooperation chaos on the SNES, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss a little of it. But there's a reason the genre moved on.

The 80% figure matters because of what launch reviews actually are: early impressions from the people who showed up first. In my experience those crowds cut both ways, ready to love a game on day one and just as ready to vent the moment something sours. A score holding at 80% through that window tells you the first hours are landing, which is all a launch score can ever tell you.

Whether it holds is another question. Open-world co-op games live or die on the long tail, on whether the loop still feels good at hour 40 instead of hour 4. Base-building helps there, giving you something to invest in beyond gear scores, but it can also turn into chores with extra steps if the upkeep outpaces the fun. That balance won't show up in launch reviews at all.

For now it's one more entrant in a genuinely good stretch for co-op RPGs, and one that isn't waiting for a publisher's blessing to ship. If you've got a regular group and you're between games, worth a look.

You can read the full breakdown over at GameRant.