Demise: Ascension is a standalone expansion for Demise: Rise of the Ku’tan, a 3D-rendered first-person, real-time, grid-based dungeon-crawler CRPG. The game is set in a fantasy realm in which, after a demon assault emerges from the Mines of Dejenol, the lord of the realm has commissioned adventurers to head down into the mines, find the source of the demonic assault, and defeat it.
Often compared to early Wizardry games and Dungeon Master in format, the game features a vast, complex dungeon filled with hazards and roaming monsters, set underneath a town with stores and amenities for the player characters. Like the Wizardry series, it features a richly-detailed and complex RPG system with a variety of races and classes, the latter of which can be changed from time to time as characters progress and join various guilds, and the potential for near-limitless character development. Periodically, procedural quests are generated, and items and creatures available for purchase in the stores refresh.
It can be played either single-player, with the player controlling a party of four characters with up to 16 companions, or as a multi-player dungeon, with each player controlling only one character with up to 4 companions. Multiplayer servers support up to 16 players on at once, and the game is purely co-op and allows for no player-killing or hostile behavior.