Yacht Club Games has officially released “Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment” on PC. Existing players who have the the “Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove” game won’t have to spend anything to play this new campaign.

On Wednesday, “Specter of Torment” became available for purchase on Steam. It is up for grabs from the Valve’s digital distribution platform for $9.99, but those who already have “Treasure Trove” are getting it for free. “If you own ‘Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove,’ you will NOT need to purchase ‘Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment’ separately. This title is included with all versions of ‘Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove,’” Yacht Club wrote as disclaimer on the Steam page of the game.

“Specter of Torment” is a prequel to “Shovel Knight.” In this campaign, players assume the role of Specter Knight, servant to the Enchantress. The character is on a quest to recruit a cadre of knights to form the Order of No Quarter. Specter Knight utilizes a scythe and his preternatural agility in this campaign, and players can make the character glide across the ground, clamber up walls and even command a range of curious weapons.

As the third overall campaign for “Shovel Knight,” “Specter of Torment” players are tasked to dispatch enemies with Specter Knight’s Dash Slash, collect and upgrade Curios to unlock special attacks and challenge one’s scythe skills through the Feats and Challenge Stages that feature Boss rematches, platforming challenges and many more.

Yacht Club has also released the list of system requirements for PC players. For Windows, the minimum requirements are Windows XP SP2 OS, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHz or equivalent processor, 2GB of RAM, 2nd Generation Intel Core HD Graphics, DirectX Version 9.0 and 250MB available space. Mac OS X have the same minimum requirements except for OS X 10.7.5 or later operating system and the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz or equivalent processor. On the other hand, SteamOS + Linux have the same requirements as Windows save for the Ubuntu 12.04 or newer OS.

“Specter of Torment” along with “Shovel of Hope” and “Plague of Shadows” were released under the $24.99 “Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove” on the Nintendo Switch last month as part of the new console’s launch titles. The game is already out on Wii U and 3DS in Japan, but players in North America have yet to see the game launch on the older Nintendo consoles, as well as on the PlayStation and Xbox gaming machines.

For PC players who are still contemplating on whether or not they should buy the standalone campaign, Reddit user Forestl has shared some insights after playing the first level of “Specter of Torment” below:

  • The levels are remixes of old stages. You see a lot of familiar things but the levels feel designed around Specter Knight. This is better than Plague Knight's stages, which felt like the the old stages with a few minor changes.
  • The wall-climbing mechanic is cool but sometimes feels a little clunky. I wall-climbed by accident a few times when I just wanted to land and fell to my death because of it once or twice.
  • The lock-on system is fun. In the air you automatically lock onto enemies and either slash upwards or downwards at them depending on where you are in relation to them. It works for both platforming and combat, and adds in some timing (for example, you wait to attack until you're below the enemy so you can slash upwards and get to the next platform).
  • The level design is great. Mechanics are introduced then added on then twisted throughout stages.
  • The music is still really good.
  • The darkness system for sub-weapons seems interesting. I haven't had that much time to test it out.

Get more information about “Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment” here.

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