CRALON Review from Pithead Studio Ex Piranha Bytes

CRALON, originally released on Steam on April 17, 2026.

The version I am reviewing today is what Pithead Studio called V2, or 2.0... Frankly, it should have been called "Patch 2", because a V2/2.0 label implies a full overhaul of the game, and THAT WAS FAR FROM THE CASE 😏

The Community Backlash

I've seen all kinds of nonsense on social media since Cralon's release...

1. People said Cralon was a catastrophe!
2. People said it was worthy of a student project, but certainly not of a Piranha Bytes veteran!
3. People said Bjorn was living on his own moon, completely disconnected from ordinary players!
4. I even read that Jenny was under Bjorn's influence and suffering from Stockholm Syndrome 🤣

Honestly, these days, social media has played a huge part in corrupting our collective mindset. People have no limits anymore. They'll say whatever they want under the banner of "free speech" — launch personal attacks, slander from morning to evening, hidden behind the anonymity of their screens, without ever facing consequences.

And between you and me, that's not the kind of fan/customer you want in any industry.

The only "influence" I'm sure Jenny has been under is the syndrome of love for her husband Bjorn 🥰 And I'll just add: a lot of the haters hiding behind their screens should hurry up, get out of their parents' basement, find an actual job, find someone to love, build a family... and swap their childish behavior for an adult one.

First Impressions: Menus, Weapons & Exploration

Now that I've covered the chaotic release, with its mixed reception (3 out of 5 stars on average on Steam), let's talk about Cralon itself! I played it for around 25 hours and took my time finishing it, because I genuinely enjoyed it — and nobody paid me to write this review (not that anyone knows me anyway 😂). But even as a fan, I'll tell you what I liked and what I wish had been done differently. Maybe the Pankratz couple will read this review someday for their future games 😎

Okay... the first problem with Cralon is the options menu 🙃

The options menu is very limited. Frankly, it feels like it was ported straight from a PlayStation menu — no graphics settings, no controller key rebinding, everything designed around one fixed way to play. And to make it worse, weapon parrying wasn't even available on controllers at launch... it wasn't added until the V2 update, which is exactly why I said above this shouldn't be called a "2.0" version.

This is a basic feature that should have been in the game from day one.

In Cralon you have access to a handful of melee weapons and just one ranged weapon: the crossbow.

I like the idea of using improvised weapons found in an old mine... but first issue: the club is clearly the best weapon in the game, and you can tell right away, since it can be upgraded multiple times — unlike the other weapons. Every creature has its weaknesses, but the club stays the best overall pick. Second issue: the crossbow can't be upgraded at all, which basically makes it useless, since the damage it deals ends up negligible.

The part I loved from the old PB games — exploration is rewarded! 🥰 Look everywhere, leave no stone unturned!

Here you can really feel that item placement in the world was hand-crafted. Sure, the result is a bit buggy — we've long been used to "bugs" with the old Piranha Bytes, to the point where we used to joke that PB was Bethesda's little German cousin 😅 But the placement feels genuinely real; there's no algorithmic generation here. It's not like The Elder Scrolls, where once you've seen 5 dungeons, you've seen them all!

So kudos on the "does it feel real?" front — from where I'm standing, that's a clear success 👍

Is it a sleeping bag ? Anyway... it's not usable...

Another issue with Cralon: "useless objects." There are tons of them! You'll interact with a bunch of teapots that are 100% pointless. For your next game, please focus on things we can actually use — otherwise it's just wasted effort on your end as designers, and wasted time on ours, spent wondering "what was this object even placed here for?"

Hey, yes, I'm a real fan — but if there's room for improvement, I'm going to say it! 😜

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

Combat: Parries, Hitboxes & Kiting

Let's talk about fighting the creatures of the mine now...
Hold your horses — there aren't actually that many different enemies to fight. I think I counted 6 different models, with a few variations, of course. But again, Cralon's whole focus is fighting your fears in the dark, and I'd guess they had to keep the roster small to stay on theme.

As you can see, they leaned hard into "creatures of the dark" — a deep red atmosphere and a solid dose of arachnophobia 😈

Funny thing: it reminds me of that little Facebook reel at the top of this review, where Bjorn is seen singing "Fear of the Dark" by Iron Maiden, with Jenny cheering him on from the front row. Was Bjorn inspired by that song when designing this game? 😜 Thinking about it now... there's probably a connection.

On the combat side, it really depends on your difficulty — and I'd recommend the hardest one — but you're only able to parry for about 2 seconds at a time. You can't hold the button down for an "eternal parry"; you have to time it precisely. Many monsters attack twice in a row, and even ranged attacks like fireballs, poison gas, or lightning bolts come in pairs. So if you time your parry wrong, you'll block the first hit, but the second one gets through!

On the hardest difficulty, you'll quickly realize you have to kite enemies to survive — like in the old grid-based dungeon crawlers, fighting while walking backwards to land a hit and dodge the enemy's own attack. This alone probably adds 5 hours to the game's length, since running backwards cleanly is genuinely tricky lol!

Bats and rats — pretty much every primal fear you'd expect in the dark of an abandoned mine 😈

The game is genuinely dark, so you'll be making heavy use of your flashlight!

Now, about hit detection: a lot of players complained about it. What you need to understand is that connecting with an attack doesn't guarantee a hit. It has nothing to do with hitboxes — it comes down to your hidden chance to actually land the hit on a given enemy. That percentage isn't shown to us, but it's not the first time I've seen this kind of system in a game. You can land a hit... or you can whiff entirely.

You can buy (or find) maps from the local trader, and upgrade some of your gear using materials at the workbench 😈

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

Visuals, NPCs & Dialogue

Alright, back to the game's issues 😅

Yes, yes, I promise I'm a real fan! Did I say this game was a catastrophe? No, I didn't 😜

The NPC models — click through the screenshots below — something's a bit off here 😮 I can't quite place it, but it looks like some 3D modeling was blended with transparent PNG overlays. I get that it's an indie game, made mostly by Bjorn based on the credits... but there's a point where you look at the NPC outlines and something is clearly not quite right.

When an NPC is friendly, their eyes glow green — and when they're not? You guessed it, red! 😏

Speaking of the credits, since I brought them up above — honestly, Bjorn, your presence in the credits is "a bit much." Creative Director/CEO with about 10 separate lines for writing, design, cooking, horse-riding (that last one's a joke). Next time, maybe just go with "Jack of all Trades" in one or two lines, because as it stands it reads like you're sitting a little too high on your pedestal.

It reminded me of all those inflated job titles on LinkedIn, where everyone's "CEO of something." Yeah, "CEO of the Cleaning Department"! So basically you clean the floors and the toilets, maybe restock the paper? 😂

The dialogue backgrounds are static, with different PNG overlays to convey NPC mood.

The dialogue itself, which is 100% voiced (a good thing), is...

1. Well written 👍
2. But honestly, a pain to sit through.

Why? Because these are long monologues, with NPCs talking to you like you were a child.

Yes, I know, you're technically a C... (no spoilers), but we don't know that yet at the start of the game — so spare us the parental tone.

Most dialogue could easily have been cut in half. For your next game, please write real conversations — the NPCs keep repeating themselves, saying six sentences in a row that all mean exactly the same thing.

Loved the Dark ambiance on the left, and here is your character inventory on the right (quite simple, no attributes).

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

The Verdict

Alright, to wrap up — a quick list of things that would have made this even better:

1. You capped save slots at 3 — why?!? I ended up manually backing up my own saves. Save corruption is a real risk, and when it happens, you'll be glad you made extra copies.
2. Areas 2 and 3 are much bigger than the first, and that's great 👍 But the final level, described as a fortress, felt more like a crumbling ruin. It really feels like the ending was rushed.
3. You didn't implement any quickslots for healing or courage potions. That means using one requires opening the full inventory (which doesn't pause the game) and drinking it as fast as possible before you get killed.

One thing I was glad to find: there isn't enough loot to buy out the trader's entire stock 😁 That's a nice change from games where you end up swimming in money by the end. Won't happen here — you'll actually have to make choices.

The official trader on the left, and on the right fighting one of your fears in a Red Dark ambiance 😈

Let's be honest, Cralon could almost pass for an alpha release... though it's far from a catastrophe. There are no game-breaking bugs, and if you do stumble on one, just quit and reload and everything works again.

I hit one myself — quicksave and manual saves stopped working at one point. Relaunching the game fixed it.

But Bjorn, when you release a patch, don't call it a "2.0" or "V2" — that label implies a massive overhaul, when really you spent a few hours fixing some things. When a studio ships a true V2, the game gets fully patched or reworked under the hood.

Don't oversell it, because your fans will notice.

Finally, when you make a YouTube video responding to your community...

A simple "yes, you're right, we should have released this later" or "we made a mistake" was all some fans were asking for to calm things down. Don't try to keep your head held high in every situation — sometimes you have to duck under a low branch, so you can proudly stand tall again afterward. If you don't, you risk staying stuck exactly where you are.

I'm sure that after all these years, you have all the money you need — whatever Cralon's commercial success ends up being, it's not going to change your daily life. Just listen a bit more to your customers' feedback going forward 😇

Now I'm waiting for Cralon 2, or whatever you two decide to work on next... if you decide to keep going, that is.

Cheers from France!

• An ideal little game for Piranha Bytes nostalgics.
• Challenging on Very Hard — expect plenty of "die and retry."
• This is a biased review, as I've always been a huge Gothic fan.

• Next time, please don't ship an alpha as a full release
• Fixing a handful of bugs is not a "V2" or "2.0"
• Please enforce English on your Steam community (it's a real pain for non-Germans stuck relying on translators)