Image via Emberstorm Entertainment
When REKA first came out in early access, it had enormous potential to deliver a cute yet edgy witch game. REKA embraced its unsettling atmosphere and softened it with squeezeable chickens, magical characters, and dappled sunlight dripping through trees. It was the sort of game that could give you goosebumps or make you feel entirely cozy, just depending on the task. As it has evolved through early access, it has boldly polished and expanded all the elements that made it an amazing early title. Now, at 1.0, REKA delivers a mystical, breathtaking journey that is equal parts artistic mastery and explorative madness.
REKA follows the story of Reka, a young girl with mysterious origins who encounters the great witch Baba Jaga in the forest outside a small town. Reka has innate magical abilities, and after helping Baba Jaga restore her chicken-legged hut, she becomes a witch-in-training.
The story tackles difficult topics and regularly tests players on moral and ethical choices – side with nature and forsake people, or give humans a chance to learn from mistakes while guiding them to better choices. REKA also puts an emphasis on how fleeting things can be, offering players open-world maps that, once left, are closed for the rest of the story.
Key Details
- Developer: Emberstorm Entertainment
- Publisher: Fireshine Games
- Platforms: PC via Steam
- Price: $19.99
- Review Code Received: Yes, for PC
A Magical World Filled With Mysteries
REKA puts a strong emphasis on exploration and detective work right from the start of the story. Your primary focus is centered on interacting with the people and locations of each map as you travel from location to location. When first starting out, you will walk into a town filled with people who all need something, but also harbor a deep fear of magic and the witch that lives in the woods.
To progress the stories of each location, you will need to progress the quests given to you by Baba Jaga and the townsfolk. REKA is a game where every interaction is critical, and you are rewarded for your efforts with deep lore that adds weight to key choices you will need to make throughout the story. For example, in the first town, you learn that a man has been plagued with angry crows because of his actions. You can offer to help him bargain to settle his debts, or you can tell him he needs to figure it out himself. While you may not feel much sympathy for him, the next town presents a group of lumberjacks that have crossed nature in a similar fashion, and after hearing their story, the line between good and evil becomes grey in short order.
REKA encourages players to become detectives and explore everything as if there could be a secret hidden somewhere in the swaying grasses or abandoned buildings. The puzzles aren’t particularly complex, but I enjoyed unraveling each new challenge and was deeply satisfied by the way the effort would progress the story.
A Game For Home Builders
Base building is easily the area that has seen the most growth throughout REKA‘s time in early access. When I first jumped into the game back in 2024, the house-building mechanics felt clunky and minimal. I struggled to build anything meaningful, and eventually gave up, opting to drive a naked chicken house instead.
The 1.0 launch showcases how much time, effort, and energy went into improving the game’s core mechanics. If you are a fan of building in Valheim or The Sims, REKA is going to delight you. The game offers comprehensive building mechanics that allow you to build up multiple floors and rooms on the back of your Chicken. There are plenty of decorations to unlock and use in your home, and it is possible to build complex and cozy witch houses that feel shockingly intricate compared to the game’s original offerings.
Additionally, the decorations you can unlock are tethered to each region in REKA, and if you don’t take your time to explore and find all the different options, they can become permanently locked. REKA does not allow players to return to previous maps once they have moved on. This means that anything missed is officially unobtainable for the rest of the story. It incentivizes players to take their time in each location so as to not miss out on key decorations of furniture items.
Some Mechanics Feel a Bit Forgotten
Unfortunately, some of the mechanics in REKA still feel a little bare-bones as of the 1.0 launch. Cooking is limited, with players throwing two or three ingredients into an oven to cook a short selection of recipes. The production timer is also in play, which feels grindy with no real benefit.
Food items are also limited in use. They can be given to townsfolk for quests, or used to move from map to map, but otherwise cooking has very little weight. I was hoping to get to do more with it, but it has changed very little since the early access version of the game.
There are also quite a few bugs still present in the game. While I didn’t run into anything that broke the game, there were several times where I had to restart the game or reload a save because something in a spell or a progression-based questline didn’t kick off accurately, making it impossible to move forward.
These little hiccups didn’t impact my enjoyment of REKA, but it is something to keep an eye on in case something isn’t working correctly while you are playing.
Final Score – 8.5/10
REKA is a beautiful, cozy, witchy game that is magical in all the right ways. From exploration to atmosphere, it feels immersive and pushes you to keep playing so that you can uncover what is really happening in the story. While there are a few bugs and a handful of mechanics that could use a little more polish, it is a joy to play and more than worth the price.
If you are a fan of witchy games, or anything with an edge of supernatural buzz, REKA is a great choice. Just remember to explore everything before you walk your chicken house; you might miss that cat companion and be down a buddy for the rest of the game.
**Bonus Action was provided with a copy of REKA for Steam for the purpose of this review**
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