Sunless Empire
By Waffle House Team - 11 Maps
Format: MBF21
[Download]
Started: October 5th 2026
Finished: October 6th 2026
Status: Completed
Waffle House Team's projects have on my radar purely because of how stacked their mapping, composing and art design cast are. Death Bear, muumi, myolden, taviow, LVENdead, Ludi, HiMyNameIsChair, Korp, plus several others? That's essentially the all-star cast of the century right there. While Sunless Empire wasn't their first project (that'd be Waffle House, hence the group's name), it is their first big hit while still being fairly short overall, so I figured it'd be a good place to start. Oh how right I was. Sunless Empire is a glowing endorsement for the entire Waffle House Team if you weren't already fans of their work individually. Not a single map in here is bad, which is always very impressive. The early chunk of Sunless Empire is concise and snappy, with Ludi and muumi's custom textures being used to great effect. Map 1 "Nostrum" is a humble opener, not especially extravagant, but it gets you accustomed to the theme and gets a new player in the door. taviow's Map 3 "Signal Fires" is the first big highlight of the wad, packing quite a lot into a singular minimalist arena with fantastic visual flair. HiMyNameIsChair's Map 7 "Drowning Beneath the Sanguine Tide" is Sunless Empire's first major outing, a sprawling ancient temple that makes incredible use of space, twisting back in on itself and unfolding new paths as you progress, all packed full of tasty secrets to discover. LVENdead's Map 8 "Rejection of the Natural Order" officially brings the set into its last phase, meshing massive scale and setpiece slaughter fights into a nice package, with a fun gimmicky fight on a waterfall that pushes you and your enemies towards an instant death pit. Despite my adoration for many of muumi's other maps, Map 10 "The Apex of Sacrifice" wasn't actually my favorite this time, though it's still just as pretty to look at as always, and closes out the wad very nicely with several really fun fights that are tuned slightly easier than you'd expect from a finale, which helps keep the pace up throughout what is otherwise a pretty lengthy journey. Sunless Empire is a functionally perfect wad when it comes to my standards. Pretty textures for a unique visual theme, great custom midis, and a perfect balance of pacing between smaller scale simpler maps all the way up to hour long setpiece slaughter behemoths. I already knew I wanted to play Sewerlust, but after this the entire Waffle House Team catalogue is immediately on my must play list. Hopefully I've got enough maple syrup handy...
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Favorite Map - Map 8: "Rejection of the Natural Order"
Least Favorite Map - Map 1: "Nostrum"