The Thaumaturge review: a knotty detective RPG brewed in a rich, historical melting pot

Monsters in my pocket

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/11 Bit Studios

• Developer: Fool’s Theory
• Publisher: 11 Bit Studios
• Release: March 4th 2024
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , GOG , Epic Games Store
• Price: £30/€35/$35
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i9-11900K, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3080, Windows 10

When we first meet The Thaumaturge ’s hero Wiktor Szulski, we’re told he’s a man cursed by the vice of pride. It’s a trait that sits at the heart of his personality, and in this particular alt-history telling of Polish turmoil in Warsaw at the turn of the twentieth century, such ‘Flaws’ can also attract the attention of otherworldly beings called Salutors - vicious creatures of myth and folklore who follow their quarry around like dark and gloomy shadows, amplifying their worst qualities and, in many cases, driving them to emotional, and often violent, extremes. It’s these outbursts that Wiktor will be investigating over the course of this curious detective RPG from the makers of Seven: The Days Long Gone and the upcoming The Witcher 1 Remake , as fortunately for him, Wiktor comes from a long line of storied Salutor tamers, his thaumaturgic know-how allowing him to see these monsters made flesh, exorcise them from their human host, and use them for his own gains.

He’s a man that’s ultimately made peace with his own arrogance, then, but considering everything he goes through during The Thaumaturge’s 25 hour-odd run-time, I reckon his pride is pretty justified. Not only is he able to brush off multiple stab and gunshot wounds and clubs to the face when he gets in a fight, but he also achieves several feats of thaumaturgy that we’re repeatedly told are thought to be nigh on impossible. Indeed, at the start of this game, his connection with his original Salutor Upyr is hanging by a thread, his worst instincts having got the best of him in a recent attempt to tame and capture a second beast from the ether. By the end, however, I had six Salutors at my beck and call, out of a total of eight. Wiktor is very much a force to be reckoned with, and he makes for a highly compelling lead as you navigate the branching storylines in Warsaw’s political hotbed.

Viewed from a top-down perspective, The Thaumaturge presents a detailed vision of early twentieth century Warsaw. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/11 Bit Studios

When gathering evidence, Wiktor can use his thaumaturgy senses to reveal hidden details in the environment, sensing hidden emotions imbued in leftover objects that can evocatively captured in brief snippets of text. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/11 Bit Studios

For all its supernatural themes, the events of The Thaumaturge are very much rooted in real-world history. Set in 1905, this is the year that the First Russian Revolution was just starting to kick into gear, and many of the sidequests and incidental details you’ll come across on Wiktor’s journey all lean on the political and social unrest of the time. Workers strikes, peasant uprisings, and religious and nationalist discrimination are all woven into the detailed, narrative fabric of The Thaumaturge, as are real historical figures such as Tsar Nikolai II and the mystic Grigori Rasputin. The latter becomes particularly entwined with Wiktor over the course of the game, as Rasputin isn’t just responsible for enabling Wiktor to handle and tame more and more Salutors, but his rise to power and cult figure-like status is also intimately tied to the game’s central plot.

Now, as someone whose knowledge of eastern European history ranges from spotty to non-existent, this alone is enough to make The Thaumaturge quite a fascinating and intriguing proposition. To my eyes and ears, at least, Fool’s Theory present a rich tapestry of viewpoints and perspectives here, with lower class folks regularly calling out Wiktor’s posh boy status, and challenging him on his right to stick his nose in all sorts of business that has nothing to do with him. Wiktor must also navigate the pressures of trying to return to high society as well, his travels and thaumaturge background having long since alienated him from his peers, and this feeling of never quite fitting in anywhere provides a fantastic stage on which players to role-play Wiktor as they see fit.

Dialogue options are both plentiful and nuanced enough for Wiktor to feel like a distinct product of the player’s choices in The Thaumaturge, his responses rarely falling into that familiar trap of being ‘obviously good’ or ‘very clearly bad’. There are polite ways to play him, sure, but there’s enough moral greyness here that you’ll almost always be disappointing someone around you at the time, with Telltale-style ‘So and so will remember this’ prompts making you take extra care in how you come across.

Encountering a wild Salutor and tempting them out into the open requires a lot of work, but the horror-fuelled climax of your investigation is well worth the effort. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/11 Bit Studios

Well, assuming that you want to play as a nice-ish version of Wiktor, at least, as you can also indulge in his arrogant streak by selecting specific ‘proud’ dialogue options, too, letting him go full asshole if you wish. These proud responses are both based on your current pride level, and feed it at the same time, giving each wanton slip a pleasingly cumulative effect as the game goes on. He can become quite a nasty piece of work if you choose to go down this route, but resist those temptations and certain prideful responses will become locked off, for example, as they’d be too out of character for your Wiktor to contemplate. Or at least that’s what I assume, as the game never actually tells you what these responses might have been. It’s a neat compromise, in any case, as it prevents those moments of disappointing disconnect between what you think a dialogue option’s going to be and what it actually results in, while still letting you wallow in occasional, but pointed displays of Wiktor’s smugness in a way that still feel true to your choice of role-play.

That said, it’s not just the Flaw of pride that Wiktor embodies. As you return to your childhood home in Warsaw to investigate your estranged father’s mysterious death, your investigations inevitably bring you into contact with other Flaw holders, and thus other Salutor hosts. Part of your job as a Thaumaturge will be to cleanse these individuals of their worst habits, sometimes to get important information out of them and make them realise the error of their ways, but mostly so you can possess and tame their respective Salutor. However, to keep that Salutor means Wiktor must also bear the burden of their respective Flaw, and it’s these other vices that never really get a look in after Wiktor’s dealt with the problem at hand. The idea of a man taking on the brunt of the world’s evils is a powerful one that’s packed with role-playing potential, so it’s a shame that Wiktor’s personality doesn’t end up morphing more as the game progresses.

Your actions have a profound effect on the types of dialogue choices you’re able to pick from. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/11 Bit Studios

Still, even if these Salutors end up as little more than glorified (albeit horrifying) Pokémon which Wiktor can use to help him win the truly staggering number of fights he becomes embroiled in during the game, their value is not to be underestimated. The Thaumaturge’s turn-based brawls are meaty, cerebral and strategic affairs that can quite easily end in defeat if you don’t keep an eye on the turn order and the speed at which attacks play out during each round, but dispatching foes quickly is only part of what makes these scraps so fun to play. Very soon in Wiktor’s journey you’ll start encountering enemies with certain traits that can only be disabled by attacking them with certain Salutors. These traits can range from self-healing to being impervious to stat changes, or even fortified defences that render your attacks all but useless. Unpicking these obstacles while keeping Wiktor alive, disrupting turn orders, and breaking an opponent’s focus to leave them open to devastating heavy attacks - all to the sound of urgent piano quavers and mournful string melodies - is properly thrilling stuff, whether you’re dealing with thuggish rabble rousers or high society toffs who think they’re better than you.

Salutor battles are a real spectacle as well, their large, nightmarish forms filling the screen as they chuck multiple rounds of shadow humans at you. You’ll have fought hard to get to this point, chasing down leads on the streets of Warsaw, following trails of evidence across multiple districts and homes around the city, and unearthing hidden clues in the environment using your thaumaturgic detective senses, all before coaxing the host into revealing their true nature through careful conversation choices. It’s a lot of legwork, but the payoff is worth it - and every time I ran into a dialogue choice that revealed ‘something still eluded me’ in my line of enquiry, I felt compelled to take a step back, and seek out that extra evidence that would push me over the finishing line. Indeed, some Salutors are only found by pursuing certain sidequests (which often feel as substantial as some of the main story missions), and there were moments where not dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ’t’s led to a beast slipping through my fingers, never to be seen again.

Accumulating these Salutors doesn’t just give you more options in battle, either. As you explore the city, pick up clues, engage in fights and complete all manner of different side activities, you’ll also gain experience that culminates in spendable Thaumaturgy points. These can be spent on upgrading your Salutors’ abilities, which in turn strengthens the particular ‘Dimension’ of thaumaturgy they belong to. There are four Dimensions in total (with two Salutors attached to each), and certain dialogue options will require you to have a Word level of 5, say, or a Mind level of 7, in order to make that particular choice. This can be vital in nailing the outcome of a particular case, as Wiktor can use these powers to manipulate people into giving up their secrets. The pace of the game is such that I always had enough points to do what I needed - it’s certainly not stingy in that regard - though I was somewhat disappointed that there wasn’t another option in a lot of these cases to obtain the answers I needed without resorting to such underhand tactics. Sure, playing with emotions is all part and parcel of being a thaumaturge, but outright mind control does feel like you’re cheating a bit somehow.

A note about our review build: When review code came in for The Thaumaturge, we were given two options: play on the default Steam branch that wouldn’t receive any updates ahead of release, or use the special review branch. The latter was due to receive a substantial update about halfway through the review process, but one we were told would likely corrupt our save file. I chose to play on the default branch, which worked perfectly fine for the most part (I had a couple of crashes here and there), but it clearly lacked some technical polish in places. Cutscenes also sometimes felt strangely abrupt, or perhaps even missing altogether in a rare, handful of cases, but never to the point where it affected my enjoyment of the game, or ability to carry on. It’s possible these issues also existed in the review build, of course, but this is mostly just a heads-up to say my experience of the game’s technical presentation may not fully match what’s present in the final game at launch.

Still, even with these small nitpicks, the important thing is that you can really see where and how your choices have affected the story, and crucially it does so in a way that feels organic and completely natural. It’s never so obvious to point out what these characters remember about their encounters with you, and it leaves enough open to interpretation that you’ll be wanting to start another playthrough almost as soon as you’ve finished the first to see how differently the game might have turned out. Some Salutors can be stolen or given away to other rival thaumaturges you encounter, for example, and the consequences of those decisions do have tangible effects on how the rest of the story plays out - both in terms of what you’re able to do in the game, and how they interact with you later on.

But that’s also precisely why The Thaumaturge ends up feeling like such an interesting, rough-hewn gem of a game. It’s those wonky edges and the almost-but-not-quite-there presentation of them that gives it such a unique sense of character and personality, as well as the space and depth to debate its themes and ideas long after the credits have rolled. There’s a lot to applaud and admire here, particularly in how each one of its systems feeds and complements the others, and it makes its own crop of flaws easy enough to forgive and overlook when considered as a whole. Pride may not be the most favourable trait in the world of The Thaumaturge, but given what Fool’s Theory have managed to accomplish here, I’d say they’ve got plenty to be proud about.

This review is based on a review build of the game, provided by publishers 11 Bit Studios.

Find out how we conduct our reviews by reading our review policy .

The Thaumaturge

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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