This past October developer Valorware released 9th Dawn III ($9.99) on PC, consoles, and mobile, the third entry in their popular old-school-style open-world RPG series. We were already pretty big fans of the first two 9th Dawn games from over the years, but this third entry was by far the biggest and most feature-rich game to date, and for me personally it was the one that really “clicked" with me and became a bit of an obsession following its release. I talk about that in our Game of the Week write-up from back then, and Shaun goes into plenty more detail in his full 5 star review of 9th Dawn III.
Valorware has released a number of updates in the 5 or so months since the game’s launch, mostly dealing with balances, bug fixes, and quality of life additions. But this week the largest 9th Dawn III update yet has released, and it features a brand new Rogue-Like mode. This is a separate mode from the main campaign and offers a randomly generated 100 floor dungeon to fight your way through. There’s a “fog of war" style effect to keep the dungeon’s layout a surprise, and every 5 levels you’ll have the opportunity to enter a portal to a Sanctuary where you can trade off any of the loot you’ve acquired or craft some items if you’ve got the right materials. You can combine the new Rogue-Like mode with the previously added Perma-death or Hard modes to basically tailor-make your ideal rogue-like dungeon crawler… right inside of the already awesome and expansive 9th Dawn III!
To celebrate this big update, 9th Dawn III is on sale for $4.99 which is 50% off its regular price and marks the lowest price the game has ever been on iOS. But wait, there’s more! To celebrate its 5th anniversary, the previous game in the series 9th Dawn II ($1.99) is currently free for the first time ever, and for just a limited time. It hasn’t been updated since near then end of 2016 so it’s missing some modern features like full screen support, but it’s still a massive and incredibly enjoyable game. You can read our original review of it here, but for free there’s no reason not to at least check it out.
If you like 9th Dawn II’s brand of old-school adventuring, then I can heartily suggest upgrading to the even more robust 9th Dawn III, especially while it’s half off. And hey, while we’re at it, Valorware’s Throne Quest ($2.99) is also on discount right now for just 99¢, and it’s a really clever dual-stick shooter spin-off of the 9th Dawn series that’s we picked as our Game of the Week when it released in early 2019. So definitely grab 9th Dawn II while it’s free for the next few days, and definitely consider picking up 9th Dawn III or Throne Quest while they’re on sale, as all three games are packed with a whole lot of gaming goodness for a very tiny amount of scratch.
