The Hellboy-inspired Apocalypse Keys asks who will hold you when the world ends

“Hell is other people” is the often quoted sentence of Jean-Paul Sartre No Exit, a minimalist stage play about three souls trapped within the walls of a one-room purgatory. The characters confess, argue, seek absolution, seduce one another, and swarm with the existential fear of bearing someone else’s judgment. In 2013, cartoonist and author Tim Kreider drew typed a line That would define a generation of online interaction: “If we want the reward of love, we must submit to the humiliating ordeal of exposure.”

New tabletop roleplaying game Apocalypse Key has a lot in common with these two disparate mediums, although creator Rae Nedjadi and publisher Evil Hat Productions don’t mention either of them in the credits. Heavily imbued with Hellboy vibes and an impressive mechanical pedigree, Apocalypse Key focuses on the vital need for connection – even love – alongside the literal end of the world. It makes you wonder if relationships can protect us from our worst impulses while at the same time giving us a full-throated oblivion.

Players embody monsters working for DIVISION, a secret government wetwork agency with a goofy acronym but a serious mission: seek out doors of power and stop the harbingers that would throw them wide open. The sessions consist of mysteries that the group, along with the guidance of a keeper (the game’s nickname for a game master), work out together as they collect the eponymous keys of the apocalypse – evidence that can be as mundane as a soaked Walkman or as obvious like a bleeding crown of blackened roses.

Like Hellboy and his BPRD spinoff, the player characters’ monsters have fought back against their apocalyptic birthright to save humanity from unseen threats. The devastating power inspires fear and revulsion from these monsters, rather than respect from all of humanity, and many would argue the reaction is justified. Any DIVISION activist is only a few bad days away from becoming a Harbinger in their own right, and only the ties of relationship with those on the very fringes of society could avert a damn fate. You need darkness to stop the apocalypse, but you need friends to hold back the darkness.

“I like to joke about that Apocalypse Key based on the concept of “We’re not that different, you and me“between the players and the Harbingers they are fighting,” Nedjadi said in an interview. “But it’s also a very emotional game – apart from the end of the world, which is a very high probability. It’s not about whether you get hurt physically, it’s about whether your feelings take over, whether you wreak havoc and cause problems for the people you care about.”

Seasoned tabletop players will immediately notice the chassis, which is inherited from the trusted Powered by the Apocalypse design school: classes as worksheet-style pre-constructed playbooks, fictional feats known as moves, and an emphasis on players coming up with their own ideas bring in the lore of the world itself. Nedjadi affectionately dubbed their game engine “Frankenstein’s Monster” and borrowed interpersonal game mechanics like bonding from emotional wuxia RPGs Heart of Wulin; fear-inducing in-game timers called clocks by ringing in the dark; and adopting the delightful puzzle-solving mechanics from the Grannies Meets Cthulhu title Brindlewood Bay.

Newcomers reading the 300-page core rulebook will not feel lost in the chapters that know how to analyze and present Apocalypse KeyThe book is like a step-by-step guide to heart surgery – amazing when you picture it fully, but surprisingly easy once you get started. Covering an increasing range of emotional and narrative complexity, the playbooks include an introduction and best practice notes. The Keepers section provides helpful tips on how to capture each character type in the most interesting (read: tragic) situations.

One of the smartest little tricks ever Apocalypse Key‘ bag is a resounding success. As with other RPGs of this type, the success of each turn is determined by rolling two six-sided dice and adding the appropriate modifiers. Traditionally, anything under a six is ​​a miss, scores over a 10 are considered an unqualified success, and everything else ends up mixed – meaning there is room for the goaltender to allow the success but to add a complication or prize. Playing as fallen gods, sinister offspring, manifestations of endless hunger, or undead soul fragments, these characters seek to control their dark impulses by navigating that sweet center. To climb above nine is to slide toward the ominous doom promised (or threatened) by what lurks in the hidden shadows of their hearts.

Progress toward this corruption counts as ruin, and if too much accumulates, it can result in characters retiring early, abandoning the game, and ushering in the apocalypse as the latest harbinger. Luckily, players can modify their scores both up and down, drawing on their bonds to each other, to key non-player characters, and to the sophisticated darkness at the core of their abilities. The rulebook states, “You have so much power, but what you really have is this: magic and fear.” Healing and hope. It’ll have to do.” Staged as flashbacks or small interpersonal moments, it could draw on these connections and prove the difference between thwarting a harbinger or reshaping the world in the horrific picture of what lurks behind the door.

Nedjadi said design Apocalypse Key saved them during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and their own mounting health crisis, as it was a project they could always push inch by inch when nothing else made sense. As the pandemic continued, their desperation turned to cautious hope, which was reflected in the final version of the game. The importance of attachments increased, as did the hopeful turn to the mysteries and plot descriptions of role-playing. The two currencies – darkness tokens and bonds – represent this tension between our worst impulses and our better nature.

Perhaps most importantly Apocalypse Key doesn’t judge those who struggle to keep their balance, instead offering moments of connection, vulnerability and intimacy as outlets for the pressures of a judgmental, callous world that rests on your characters’ shoulders.

Apocalypse Key encourages player expression wherever possible, provides constant nudges for group interaction, reveals a terrifying secret or complication, or merges with the other monster’s arms and lips – heck, there’s a whole section in the Book titled “I Almost Called This Game Apocalypse Kisses.”

Hell isn’t the other humans in this RPG, but they might be the only thing standing between you and a rapidly opening door to cosmic annihilation.

Apocalypse Key is now available from the Evil Hat Productions online storeabove Amazonand at your friendly local game store.

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