Last updated on December 15th, 2025 at 07:29 pm
Dread Rune – Roleplaying Game Review
Dread Rune is a Roleplaying/Action game from James Foward, first launched in 25th May 2021.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 529+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Dread Rune Stand Out
Dread Rune Is a roguelike RPG with 3d graphics and lots of variety and replayability. Every game is unique, with seven different playable characters, randomized levels and enemies, and over 130 items to collect and use. The game is simple to get into, but has lots of depth. Mastering of weapons, combos and strategic use of items will be required to win.
Dread Rune includes:
- High replayability: Randomly generated levels, enemies, and items. No two games are the same!
- 12 hero classes: Adventurer, Pirate, Mage, Drunk, Conjurer, Lord,Pump-King, Blink, Ranger, Soul Mage, Necromancer and Chef. Each hero has a unique ability, starting stats and items.
- 5 distinct dungeon regions: Each with unique enemies and environments
- Over 130 different items: including powerful runes, scrolls, weapons, and armour.
- 30+ different enemies, 10 different traps, and 5 bosses to test your skills.
- A destructible environment, create your own path through the dungeon.
- Character upgrades that persist across runs: Damage, Health, Stamina, Speed, Dash Speed, Carry Capacity and Special Cooldown.
- Random events, sometimes good, mostly bad, discover all 18 of these encounters
- Updates, with new content roughly every 6 months.
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Dread Rune is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 26th April 2025
Recent improvements include:
- You can now sell items at Traders and Blacksmiths.
- 4 new enemies: Coin Bandit, Snow Wolf, Elven Trickstar, Demo Dwarf, plus updated animations for existing enemies.
- New items like the Blunderbuss, Horn of Valhalla, and many more.
- Added a variety of new boons, including the Spectral Wolf.
- Destruction system now affects Wooden and Metal objects.
- Bug fixes and quality of life improvements.
Full patch notes on Discord!
Download & Availability
Dread Rune is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Combat is fun and the floor choices are interesting because of the way the rarity works so youll pick something different every time. Weapons are all different so there are many ways to play.
Just downloaded last night. Already know Ill be spending a lot of time with it. Great.
A really interesting dungeon crawler game.
It gud, like Chef fart. Want more plz.
This game is so much fun we could play it all day though its fun to play it all sneaky on the levels with no cannons but its hard to get away from enemies when they see you (if we could fix it we would make it when you get out of their view it shows an outline of the player and the enemie would check it out but if the player was not there they would look around but not instantly follow the player until they die).
Pretty good and entertaining overall. Rewards at end of levels with ads do not work.
Needs more content and customization.
Needs controller support for the backbone.
So, we're giving this game a buy. Even if we don't ever come back to it, we are impressed enough to validate giving this developer some revenue. We'd actually like to see more of a dungeon seige story in it rather than just rogue like. We'd like to be able to use weapons and get good at them before they break. We'd like to carry more. We'd love to see an overworld with day night and weather.
Ran into a bomb early on and thought the blast radius was a bit big,we ran out of the highlighted zone(and then some for safety) but still took a little damage,it wasnt that much damage taken but otherwise great so far.
We really want to enjoy the game. Im having a problem with enjoying it smoothly however. Every time we enter a new floor and it give us option to choose a legacy, the game stops responding and we can no longer choose. At this point we have to completely close the app and relaunch to continue.
Im a critic! So a good review from us is really hard to get. We only spent like two hours on this game before beating normal. (we will be playing again to check out all the extra details we missed like hidden chambers and going hardcore with darkness). Its a genuinely decent game, so try it out. There is micro transactions but they dont bother you at all. We didnt notice any ads if there were any. So thank you dev, for an enjoyable experience that wasnt cluttered with garbage cash grabbing. From us to the dev from here on out. Now, improvements; we found ourselves getting a little bored, we didnt realize there was a end to the game. We thought it was endless levels and we were going to quit playing. Mind you we played for two hours – we more so didnt feel like playing anymore than was bored. However we wasnt sure if Id lose progress. A save button would be nice, or something that assures us we can pick up where we left off. We wouldnt mind if the backpack was more organized. Consumeables, weapons, armor, shield, all being separated and organized. We noticed the shield/gun items but aside from when our primary broke, we never used them. They either are extremely weak, or opened us up for damage. Some refactoring to make them a more viable option would be wise, though maybe its intended theyre not great. On the same topic, we had this one gun that was automatic, used up 50 ammo in like 2 seconds or could be semiauto. We couldnt figure out how to switch between auto/semi and we were in the final boss with no weapon and no health items because .. We wasnt prepared lol. Luckily we managed to win but the auto/semi almost killed us/ made us lose our final weapons. We were a bit finicky because it was the last boss so we didnt have time to test it out. Speaking of testing out, maybe a practice mode would be helpful for new players. Where they can use whatever item they want and spawn any creatures they want. We think EVERY game should implement a feature like this.
Its a basic dungeon crawler, pretty fun! We cant wait to see it evolve.
Like Diablo 1! Love it. Cant wait to see controller support added.
Could you please add backbone controller support.
Cons: Attacks dont feel very satisfying, we dont feel an incentive to explore or pick up loot or use the items because theyre not very exciting, boss fight was too easy, controls feel very stagnant, Im not feeling much challenge and things are too simple Backpack gets full and we didnt care because why? Im Killing stuff just fine Theres a lot of hints from Skyrim survival mode going on that makes some of the items feel uninspired. We know its kick in the door, but maybe a little story to each level would be cool so the player feels a goal or a purpose How Id fix the cons: If the game is a straight forward dungeon crawler kicking in the door on each level, youve got to target power gamers and slayer gamers. This means going art and animation heavy and finding a good balance of level ups and progression, the game is handing you the goods way too abundant and it cheapens the fun into boredom. Id like more camera action, screen shakes, blood and gore, violent kills etc and increase the durability of weapons and gear but give them more sparingly. The controls feel very vanilla, they need more physics like the player shifting forward when making combos and striking stuff and having the weapon stick out further with a more obvious hit on the enemies. Enemy death animation isnt fast enough If thats not possible, Id consider adding story and other mechanics to hook the player like puzzles in the dungeons or finding keys to doors. Some skill trees or item progression to get the player looking forward to stuff might help, as is we dont feel much of a progression in loot and stuff. Variety is good but it needs to ramp up better. Pros: The random generation is awesome and we like how its rigged to be endless, the graphics are pretty cool and we dig the theme and the runes. We thought it was hilarious that you could kill the friendly NPCs lol A lot of the weapons and armor looks interesting. The areas were fun to explore for awhile. We like how you get the full deal with ads and you pay to get rid of them, awesome idea there. Very fair. We know we wrote a lot of nag, but thats only because we like this game enough to take time for feedback. We think it has a journey ahead of it but itll be worth the hard work.
Beat normal mode on our first run after tutorial. Hitstun on mobs makes the game somewhat easy, just save an epic weapon to use against the last couple bosses and youre good.
Lots of choices that influence your run, skill based and works well with a controller. Our only con would be the ad after every level, but its not enough to change our 5 star. We believe game has potential to be big enough to no longer even rely on ads.
From beating the final boss of the game. We can say that this game is giving us a really great time. We love most of the mechanics that are introduced aside from one. The magical staff/spell weaponry in this game feels, very clunky. Its difficult to lock on to an enemy with the staffs and more than not, Ill end up taking hefty damage from the start up lag of the attack. Fireballs also arent that good in our experience of using them. So having a class based around using magical attacks can seem very weak compared to the superior melee combat. But other than that, this game is really well made. One of the few mobile games Ive actually enjoyed in recent years. Keep up the good work.
Really fun crawler. Optional ads that equal decent gear for the next level. Im having a good time.
Nice and simple controls. Easy to pick ip and run a handful of floors til we either need to end it or we get ended. But all in all its a fun little dungeon crawler.
The game so far has been a lot of fun, combat feels good and the levels dont take ages. Weapons and gear break pretty fast but overall great game.
It's fun combat could be a bit smoother and wish ads were able to be less a fullscreen video maybe a add player in the inventory? Bet that would get more views too.
First boss down. Appreciate the game. Fun stuff.
Entertaining, wish it had controller support. Combat facing movements are a little clunky.
We assumed it was another piece of freemium shovelware but the IAPs are for real persistent upgrades. No paywall, no timers, and reasonable cooldowns. We were disappointed that its real-time vs turn-based, but thats simply our preference so we cant really deduct points for that.
Def need controller support would change the game a lot.
Im spending way more time playing this than we thought we would and loving every minute of it.
Every time we have made it to level 17 it freezes then when we try to continue it kills our character. Other than that its ok. The past few days it kicks us out of the game randomly. Kind of annoying.
Its fairly good, we didnt get too far into it because it just felt like we had little need or drive to finish a level (not saying it needs to be a boss at the end kinda game) but a couple enemies would slide around when they would attack, we felt the lock on was kinda useless because of how much the mobs would swarm you. We dont play a ton of games like this but the one feeling we get when we play other rougelikes is Ill do better next time not well we hope we get lucky drops. Again we didnt play much but thats how we felt with what little we played with. Oh and add a bit to the tutorial on how to interact with stores, we killed the first two we met trying to interact with them.
Fun game… Slightly hamstrung by some bad design decisions like weapons breaking. The environment is destructible but hitting it destroys your weapons. The "realism" is not worth the tradeoff of bad playability. Would be easy enough just to have weapons not break … Really what's the benefit? Anyway, generally otherwise well put together. Decently fun, fine controls, great graphics, good content, good difficulty curve. Worth checking out casually.
The controls are iffy. When blocking your character winds up to block which defeats the purpose of timing blocks. Even when locked in sometimes you miss. We have no idea how to interact with the other npcs. Tried tapping, looking for a button and nothing. Tutorial needs to show how to drop items for inventory management. Inventory needs organizational tabs. Sneaking needs its own button. A minimap or map would be really nice to have since everything is gray and looks similar. Id love for there to be an option to see an items info without picking it up and then being able to choose to pick it up or not. This would also help with inventory management since you wont hoover every item up. A spears range is extremely lackluster, the point of a spear(pun intended is to be able to hit your enemy first. We had to go in sword range just to hit them. All this aside we do love how it doesnt hold your hand and its got a good feel to it. Its almost perfect. It needs some polishing to be good. It has some nice potential. Ill keep playing it for a while and we hope the developers keep our suggestions in mind.
This game has the worst input lag of any game we've ever played. Im getting stun locked in the first room because the attacks are so slow, if there's more than one enemy you absolutely can not time attacks at all. This game set the record for fasted uninstall, and biggest letdown. We want to like this game, it's exactly what Im looking for right now, but it is NOT playable at all.
U know it Worship arnie Great game.
Dont normally leave reviews, but a great game plus being updated with patches and an active developer excited to see where this goes good luck.
We never write reviews, but this game is worth taking the time for it. Great playability, not pushy on ads, and very well made. Good job dev.
This game is a lot of fun and the concept is great! The only thing Is that it has some major drawbacks when it comes to the design. Like for instance chests launch you into the air when you stand on them and open them leaving you flying off a cliff to possibly die. Also we have found many other bugs like there is a boss stage you can skip and a spot on another boss that will leave you trapped in the level and force you to quit and refight the boss you already beat. Things need work for sure but give it a try its a fun rouge like.
Pros: – Advertisements arent intrusive – Destructible environment (almost everything) – Varied loot that is reflected graphically on your character – Bite-sized gameplay – Some randomness regarding powers/equipment/level-design for replayability Cons: – Controls are floaty – UI is a bit messy/unclear – Graphics are not polished, which results in lots of muddy visuals – Unclear objectives.
This game is actually really pretty fun and smooth for a mobile game (if a bit easy), and we would love to play it more. For some reason though every time we spawn in on level 15, it drops us instantly in a pit and kills us. This happened the only two times Ive played and it was frustrating. Please fix it.
Honestly alright time killer kinda janky but Im kinda ok with it.
This game is so much fun and there is so much potential in our opinion, but we believe the game would be even better with a multiplayer mode. We know youre the only one working on this but the game would be super cool if you could team up with other people and take on the dungeon. Hope you see this, and we love your game.
Out of all RPGs Ive played this is our final destination it has all the things Im lookin for thank you for creating such a wonderful game, and on your own to thats amazing we wish you good luck and goodbye.
We know that you can fall through floors to progress but sometimes when we miss a staircase behind it we fall through the map and it has caused us to die a couple times. Dont know if this is intentional but if it isnt a fix would be nice. Thanks for the hard work its a fun game :).
Personally find it to be a fun way to pass some time at work only reason Im leaving a comment is floor 18 wouldnt load even after restarting a couple times then when it finally did, we spawned off the most and fell to our death. Mightve been our phone or idk a bug but :(.
4 different times now Ive made it to level 15 with the Lord class. And 4 different times it has failed to load level 15. Doesnt seem to happen to our other classes. Only lord. Other than that. Its a good time killer.
After the current update the build of this game has immensely improved. Weapon drop rate has increased and now you can buy repair kits at blacksmiths. We still think you need to repair too often but the developer is listening to feedback so we give him a lot of credit. Its moving in the right direction and if you want a souls like experience on your phone it can scratch that itch.
Much better now that you have a basic unbreakable sword.
We love this game. Its the sort of roguelike Ive been dreaming of. We love the destructible environment! The only bug Ive encountered so far is a stairway that spawned on level 4 (after we used a shovel to get there) if we climb the stairs we fall off the map, or at least the outside of the game border, and we cant find our way back in. But we know the game is still in development. And by one person?!!! Amazing. This developer has a bright future we think.
Unique weapons everywhere been looking for a dungeon crawler just like this one.
This ones five stars to go over our last three star rating so at least they average out to four stars. We found out how to be a necromancer, finally, we dont know why we thought it would be under another tab but we just didnt go through the Start New Game process long enough. We still wouldnt give this five stars due to the frustration of stupidly limited weapons durability. We know the developer, James, has told others that weapon durability is to encourage exploration of a dungeon. With all due respect, that is a dumb reason. What, you think people get a loot grinding roguelike to sit around with poor-tier gear to watch the entry level walls paint figuratively dry? No! People dont explore because you force them to with a poor system! People explore because they got your game and it interests them! All you are doing with the durability system is irritating the people that are already trying to play your game and making it less enjoyable for them, not enticing people who are on the fence. In fact, youre actively driving those people away. If you dont believe us, look at all of the pay-through-the-nose roguelite shmup games where (some) people spend hundreds of dollars to get top-tier items and create the build of their dreams. We dont have that kind of cash and stop playing those kinds of games because of sheer annoyance at being bugged to death to watch ads for free stuff. One idea: if you feel you have to force people to play your game, maybe you have a boring game. We dont think your game is boring, we agree with others that state it has a lot of potential. Frustrating game design doesnt help it at all, though, and you wont have as many people playing and generating revenue if you turn them off. That goes for us too: Im going to look up some guides to see exactly what each of these characters can do, grind to the point we can get that character, and if Im not impressed thats it. Youve lost a customer. We are not saying this for the sake of snark, but so that you can see this is the type of thought process customers go through. You are literally competing with tens or hundreds of thousands of other games on the App Store. There is no such thing as an unhappy customer except in monopolies: you either have happy customers or no customers if they are free to choose. We wish you the best and hope that you make a ton of money. We wish we could write apps and make money, we hate our day job. :).
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.20
- Size: 339.73 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: [James Foward]()
Last updated: 26th April 2025 | Genre: Roleplaying, Action | Developer: James Foward