What if Hell wasn’t somewhere you went, but something you carried around inside you? That’s the unsettling idea behind The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline, a first-person psychological thriller that puts a modern spin on one of literature’s most famous journeys.
It is now available on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC, priced at £19.99.
Developed by One O One Games and published by Entalto Publishing, this isn’t an action game about hacking through hordes of demons. Instead, Gabriele Alighieri must explore, solve puzzles and confront a family legacy that has been waiting for him for generations.
At A Glance
- Game: The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline
- Formats: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC
- Price: £19.99
- Publisher: Entalto Publishing
- Developer: One O One Games
- Genre: Psychological Thriller / Narrative Adventure
A Family Tradition You Really Don’t Want
Every 33 years, the barrier between reality and Hell begins to weaken. Gabriele has spent his life avoiding the Alighieri legacy, but now he has little choice but to return to his ancestral Italian villa and perform the Ritual.
His objective is to recover the lost magical pages of The Divine Comedy and use them to restore the Infernal Seal. Unfortunately, the deeper Gabriele digs into his family’s history, the harder it becomes to separate the truth from everything his mind is showing him.
There are no weapons to fall back on here. The tension comes from exploration, atmosphere and the growing feeling that something is very wrong.
“We decided what kind of terror we wanted to portray: not the fear of dying, but the fear of being seen. Because sometimes the most terrifying thing is someone or something that understands you completely.” – Gaia Righelli, Game Director
Two Sides Of The Same Nightmare
The adventure moves between two connected realities.
The first is the Villa, a quiet and melancholic family home filled with diaries, clues and fragments of the Alighieri history. Then comes The Dive, a distorted reflection of the infernal depths where reality becomes considerably less dependable.
Together, the two spaces form the backdrop for a journey into Gabriele’s fears and trauma.
Puzzles, Pages And A Fractured Past
The Alighieri Circle mixes environmental puzzles with exploration, asking players to decipher esoteric riddles while searching the surroundings for collectibles and diary pages. These discoveries aren’t simply there to pad out the adventure either. They help piece together the history of the Alighieri bloodline and explain why Gabriele has been forced into the Ritual.
The result is an intriguing alternative to the usual interpretation of Dante’s Inferno. The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline takes the famous concept of Hell and turns it into something considerably more intimate, with Gabriele’s own memories, fears and family history becoming part of the nightmare.
At £19.99 from the Xbox Store, this is one for players who would rather investigate an unsettling mystery than reach for a sword. And with two realities to explore and a centuries-old ritual to complete, Gabriele’s return home looks unlikely to be a particularly relaxing family reunion.
