Sigh of the Abyss is a dark fantasy visual novel with a customizable protagonist, a choice-heavy narrative and optional, inclusive romances. It was developed and published by Rascal Devworks, the people behind After I met that catgirl, my questlist got too long!, and released in October 2024.
The game can be found here
. A prologue version, entitled Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds ▪ Prologue, was released in mid-2022 and is accessible here.
Tropes:
- Age-Gap Romance: Ascanio is the most straightforward example due to Really Seven Hundred Years Old, but most of the love interests, with the exception of Alpheon, have at least twenty years of lived experience on the protagonist who was Born as an Adult.
- Amnesiac Hero: The protagonist has to rely on telling people she has amnesia, especially to people who might recognize her body or who otherwise can't/shouldn't be told the real reason why she doesn't have any memories prior to waking up in that cave.
- Born as an Adult: The protagonist, due to the ritual used to create her, is "born" in the body of an adult woman but with none of the experience.
- Cast Full of Gay: Malec, Alpheon and Marané are the bisexual love interests, and Sylas is the ace lesbian love interest.
- The Chosen One: The protagonist, the Envoy, is the product of a ritual that empowers them with the magic of the Abyss, at the cost of some Human Sacrifices that now try to guide her from beyond towards toppling a society where a powerful elite few exploit the many beneath them.
- Defecting for Love: In Ascanio's route, if the protagonist decides to not go through with the Darkest Hour it's pretty strongly implied to be because of this.
- Gilded Cage: The mages are kept in the High Halls and live in the height of luxury. But they're only allowed out twice a year, and can only use their magic for highly prescribed purposes, even when they are allowed outside. Marané is a rare exception to this rule, and she quickly becomes disillusioned with the relative freedom she has compared to the rest of the mages as she is confronted with problems her magic could easily solve. Marané spends most of her route trying to break out of the cage, and her desperation to escape results in her being the only love interest that remains a love interest - and even supports the protagonist - in a Darkest Hour run.
- Hidden Depths: While all the love interests get this to some extent, the two standouts are Alpheon and Ascanio. Alpheon's route goes into more detail about his thoughts and why he acts the way he does. Ascanio's depths are so hidden he's a Walking Spoiler.
- Horny Bard: Alpheon was this but has since cut back, having grown tired of needing to lie to his lovers about his life. In his route, he Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest.
- Impoverished Patrician: One of the protagonist's trials involves returning an heirloom to the last member of a noble family, who doesn't particularly want it.
- Karma Meter: A variant, in that the story tracks which of the four humors the protagonist is most attuned to: easygoing sanguine, thoughtful phlegmatic, anxious melancholic, and fiery choleric.
- Mortality Ensues: Depending on the choices the player makes, the protagonist can forgo being an envoy and become a normal human. They can also gain the power to inflict this on other envoys and subject Ascanio to this.
- Multiple Endings: There are two major choices that affect what endings and epilogues are available to the protagonist: their choice of love interest, and whether they decide to to enact the Darkest Hour, or side with the Prodigal One, aka Ascanio. There's also Take a Third Option that is only available for certain love interests: rejecting being an envoy in favor of becoming mortal, thus making the Darkest Hour Not Your Problem.
- Nay-Theist: "The Prodigal One" aka Ascanio has a grudge against the Abyss and goes into detail about it once it's time to lay all cards out on the table. To say that the Prodigal One has some very negative feelings about the Abyss and its role in the world is an understatement.
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Envoys of the abyss, due to their unaging and indestructible nature, eventually wind up invoking this.
- Rich Bitch: The original inhabitant of the protagonist's body was not a pleasant person. Everyone who knew the "previous" her quickly comments on how they like her new personality better.
- Second Love: Ascanio is a widower, with a deceased child as well, before falling for the protagonist on his route. Working through his grief over his wife and daughter's deaths - and his guilt for developing feelings for the protagonist - are major themes in his route.
- Street Urchin: Sylas is one of the few Carolise urchins to make it to adulthood.
- The Syndicate: Carolise has one of its own, and finding out who they are and dealing with them is something the protagonist needs to resolve. Sylas is a member.
- Walking Spoiler: There's not a lot that can be said about Ascanio, aka "The Prodigal One" without the spoiler tag.
