Heroes of Hammerwatch II

Borderline Thumbs Down I had fun with this, but the first Heroes of Hammerwatch is better in literally every way. This game does okay enough on its own, but it lacks much of the charm of the first game. This game tries to be something it shouldn't and fails to capture the allure of the first Heroes of Hammerwatch. This one seems like it tries to give more of a campaign feel rather than the roguelike dungeon dive, and it doesn't work quite right. The campaign is far easier, robbing you of the feeling of progression when you can beat the dungeon on your first attempt rather than having to progressively work you way to the final boss. This game is clearly more about the meta progression of NG+n than it is about developing individual characters. I don't like that. I feel cheated when a new level-1 character can beat the game without a challenge. The campaign is also far longer, taking over an hour even with an over-leveled character. Each floor of the dungeon is far bigger than necessary rather than a neatly designed package. Even the town where you upgrade your character is massively spread out, forcing you to walk back and forth all over the place just to upgrade your character. It's as if the developers deliberately thought how to waste the players' time and this game showcases what they came up with.

Extremely fun & deep enough that even 9 hours in there's new depths to this game, other than dungeon levels.

The game has a novel design and gameplay that makes me think of a less messy vampire survivors.

HOH2 is a nice little roguelite game. It's very grindy and repetitive, which makes it probably not great for something to play for many hours on end, but it's still very suitable for a few hours of chilling out here and there. I'd love to see some updates that make main campaign runs a little bit more varied. And maybe get just a little more control over guaranteeing certain skill upgrades during a run, since most classes have ~3 clearly optimal upgrades that you more or less absolutely need to roll in order to have enough survivability and damage output to make it through the last couple areas on runs commensurate with your character level. And runs are too samey and too long (about 2 hours casually) for missing these rolls and losing the run so close to the end to be fun. Also, axes and daggers/dual daggers outclass all other weapon options by such a degree that you should basically never use anything else, even on mage characters, which is kind of a bummer. (Axes have the best melee DPS and daggers give a massive damage reduction bonus via a parrying mechanic.) I also have a bone to pick with the obstacle courses that often surround loot chests. I really do not like having to focus in, wait, and do precision timing and movement challenges in the middle of my chillout roguelite about mindlessly running around and mashing weapon attacks and/or spells at big crowds of fodder enemies. Devs, please consider an option to just not have this. I strongly prefer the NG+ chests with a combat encounter over the obstacle courses and mazes and stuff. Also, the default pixel font is very hard to read. Fortunately it was possible to fix this with a mod. (Check my workshop.) I suppose that's a lot of complaints, but I still played this game for 60+ hours and will definitely be playing it for more. I just think this game could be something pretty special with more variety in main campaign runs and with a little more balancing on builds and difficulty, to either make more options more viable or at least make the current most important upgrades less easy to miss. I played HOH2 single-player, but it seems like it could make a nice co-op experience as well.

For the rest of this year, you need to pay more if you want the updates. 2 DLC incoming. and a free pet for everyone. Don't buy this game

Heroes of Hammerwatch II is honestly a blast to play. The gameplay feels addictive in the best way possible — every run is fun, rewarding, and makes you want to jump straight into the next one. The co-op mode is one of the biggest highlights for me. Being able to play with up to 5 players makes the dungeon crawling chaotic, hilarious, and incredibly fun with friends. What I liked most: Fast and satisfying combat Great replay value with tons of progression Different classes feel unique and fun to experiment with Loot and upgrades are very rewarding Excellent co-op experience for groups of friends Beautiful pixel art and atmosphere Good mix of roguelite mechanics and RPG progression Devs seem active and keep improving the game with updates If you enjoy roguelites, dungeon crawlers, or pixel-style action RPGs, this game is absolutely worth checking out. Easily one of the most fun indie co-op games I’ve played recently.

Great game, good feel. Classes feel unique. I did face game breaking bugs when playing online with randoms but not with my brother; idk why. (I would have to reset my monitor every new dungeon or else I would get 12 fps, and at one point my character became invisible and uncontrollable which caused us to have to abandon a scroll mission which sadly go away forever if incomplete.) It works perfectly with 32:9 and has fine tuning options for most things! More updates (like new characters and maps) are still to come all throughout this year (2026). You can't go wrong!