Death Must Die

Reviewing in early access 2025 with a roadmap indicating a massive overhaul incoming in 2026. Very solid horde survival roguelite. the game definitely forces you to position yourself well and use dashes in reaction to enemy attacks. this is NOT an AFK pixel vomit simulator. this is (fairly) challenging for the genre. you would likely find it difficult to go afk for any duration even near the end of runs. bosses especially demand your attention and can even feel unfair if you are not in tune with dash reactions. All that said, again (fairly) challenging for the genre. there are 3 separate biomes with varied enemies that keep you engaged with the game. runs are 20 minutes long with 3 bosses encounters (forced) at specific intervals. vertical progression within runs is through a god blessing system similar to hades. there are nuances with the system and balance across the board feels pretty good but could use some tuning. most of the elemental themed gods/goddesses feel on brand with their identity and provide meaningful bonuses. There are not too many cross-synergies between gods, for better or worse. your meta progression is a talent tree for each of the classes and equipment. you unlock talent points up to a maximum of 36 by killing bosses in the runs. while the talent trees do have some filler, generic portions, there are also PLENTY of meaningfully unique talents that change how you (would want) to play the class. Equipment is dropped during the runs with a mix of rarity tiers and level tiers as you progress through the biomes. most of the equipment stats are randomized but there are 'unique' equipment drops with special hard coded affixes as well. there is a lot going on with this title and the developer is still working on it. as of this writing, you could probably blow through the fundamental experience in about 3-4 hours, but otherwise up to 20 hours if you want to flesh out each of the unique classes and run through the hard mode biomes. from there, the sky is the limit if you want to really grind out equipment drops or something, but ill just patiently wait for big content drops personally.