The interesting thing about the video game industry is that it’s always combining concepts, refining them, mixing them like a potion in a witch’s cauldron to create something new and unexpected. Every once in a while, a new style of game will emerge out of the brew and surprise you. With the focus on roguelikes in indie gaming, it’s not surprising that there are a wide variety of experimental roguelikes out there these days. But once in a while, one still manages to surprise you, blending concepts seamlessly into a unique game that really manages to stand out.
That game is Curse of the Dead Gods, a new roguelike from Passtech Games and publisher Focus Home Interactive. You know the recipe, but that’s not all that’s important here. You’re an explorer, locked in an ancient tomb and probably doomed. The story is told through excellent animation with limited detail but it’s not really the details that are important. You’ll find yourself at an alter, picking up weapons and then opening doors. Suddenly, you’re locked in, forced to fight for your life. Defeat all of the supernatural monsters that dwell within the tombs that you fight through and you just might survive. Maybe.
Perspective is one of the most interesting things about Curse of the Dead Gods. This is a game that takes the roguelike formula and sets it into a Diablo-style matrix. It’s an excellent combination, one that Diablo itself used to a certain extent. But for all the similarities to Diablo, there are plenty of differences too. Combat is much faster and more fluid than a Diablo game, with main weapons, sub weapons, blocking and parrying actions, dodge mechanics, and a plethora of traps and enemies. Think Diablo meets God of War in a dark, oppressive roguelike and you’ll be starting to get the idea.
Controls are tight and responsive here. Your character reacts quickly, and with the variety of weapons available, you can respond in different ways. Hammers swing slow but hard, daggers can be thrown, whips lunge across the screen, and even guns and bows have their place. You can hit and parry perfectly generating a variety of effects as well, and both you and enemies are susceptible to environmental effects, making the walls and floors themselves part of your arsenal. It’s an elegant combat system that works like a well-oiled machine and never gets too complicated.
That’s not all that’s happening either though. On top of combat and environmental effects, even the light sources have an impact on gameplay. You carry a torch at all times and that torch provides light. Unfortunately, you can’t hold it and fight at the same time. Fight in the dark and enemies do extra damage to you, requiring you to light torches and sconces around the combat arenas to keep from being slaughtered immediately. Your torch can also set enemies and environments on fire, allowing you to light barrels of explosives, lead enemies into the blast radius, and slaughter them without breaking a sweat!
But that’s not all you’re here for. There’s also the roguelike mechanic, the crux of Curse of the Dead Gods. As you play, each door you pass through adds corruption to your character. Hit 100 corruption and you are literally cursed by the dead gods. You get a random curse that can have any number of effects, from automatically setting off traps to spawning enemies each time you defeat an enemy or even ticking down your life second by second until you hit one hit point. There’s no avoiding corruption, no escape from the effects, and as you progress you stack curse after curse until finally maxing out at five. If you manage to survive a level, your curses are removed and you warp back to the staging area, having defeated a dead god and gaining considerable recompense in the process. But it definitely won’t happen all at once or easily!
There are even more roguelike mechanics at play here however. In addition to the randomized level designs and curses, levels contain multiple pathways, allowing you to choose between health, weapon upgrades, state upgrades, gold, and other options. Choosing your path wisely is a key to survival but there are consequences to every decision in Curse of the Dead Gods. Skip a health area because you are greedy and you may not even survive to the boss. Enter a relic room with no gold and you’ll be forced to pay with your own blood, slitting your wrist at the altar and gaining a significant portion of corruption in the process. Curses can modify the effects and costs of room benefits, the way lighting works, and even your weapons, so choose, but choose carefully! There’s no going back here, only forward and the way is sealed behind you at every turn.
Eventually, you’ll manage to reach bosses in Curse of the Dead Gods and they’re doozies! One early boss summons spectral dogs while hitting you from a distance with blasts from his weapon. Another throws out corruption mines that also damage you across the combat arena and then fires dense bullet patterns across the entire room! Manage to defeat a boss and you’ll reap ample rewards though, mostly in the form of crystal skulls (the game’s currency), jade rings that allow for the purchase of new and stronger weapons, and amulets that unlock new levels if you gather enough. You can spend your hoard between runs, modifying the blessings available to you to help you progress further, and rebuilding altars that slowly gain stronger weapons, as well as a few other benefits. Unlock the next tier of levels and stages are even longer, forcing you to survive combat and now mid-bosses before attempting to destroy a final boss! There’s no letting up here!
Sounds like a lot, right? Well, there’s even more to Curse of the Dead Gods! On top of all that complexity, there are challenge stages. These add environmental effects right from the start of your run, forcing you to compensate for incredibly vicious issues like compounded corruption, ticking health, or even one that turns the entire game into a black and white horror movie and eliminates the entire HUD, leaving you with no idea what your life is at as you cut a swatch through the eldritch rooms of the temple. Yeah, you’re definitely going to die a lot.
Suffice it to say that Curse of the Dead Gods is a complex and gratifying game. But it’s also a gorgeous game! The art style is cartoonish but dark, allowing for a wide variety of creepy creatures and environments. Color schemes are dark and variable, shifting from room to room and god to god with wild abandon. The lighting effects are spectacular and realistic, obscuring whole areas depending on where you turn with your torch and the mystical glow of energies from your enemies tinges everything with a throbbing glow. Even your torch can be cursed, emitting a dark purple light and leaving you trapped in perpetual darkness, shifting the look of the entire game. Weapons and creatures are creative and unique, loosely based on Central and South American folklore for the most part, and manage to be quite appealing in their oddly disturbing way.
Sound effects sync well with the atmospheric graphic design and it really feels like you’re trapped in an abandoned temple, fighting for your life with every step and the music throbs and crescendos admirably during a vicious boss fight. If there’s a downside to the sound and visuals in Curse of the Dead Gods it’s that portably on the Switch, the screen is simply too small to truly enjoy the spectacular level of detail that’s been included in the game. It’s also hard to hear the dripping, visceral sound effects from the Switch’s tinny speaker without headphones.
This is a game that’s been conceived to challenge you and keep you coming back. The difficulty curve is high but fair, and even repeating runs can net you some unlocked pictures and information on the myriad of monsters contained within Curse of the Dead Gods. But come back you will, over and over. This is the perfect roguelike design, catering to that ‘just one more run’ mentality and rewarding you for your diligence and skill. Successfully mixing the Diablo-style dungeon design with cartoon graphics and a roguelike structure could have gone horribly wrong here, but it hasn’t. Curse of the Dead Gods is an absolutely spectacular action rogue-like with a bloody spattering of horror liberally mixed in. For $20, you’re going to get a lot of hours out of this one and the art style, characters, and combat are definitely memorable. If roguelikes are your bag, then Curse of the Dead Gods is one of the best new ones out there, so go out there, sacrifice some blood, and suffer!
This review was based on a digital copy of Curse of the Dead Gods provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and was noticeably better in docked mode due to the size of the visuals (it runs great in both modes!). Curse of the Dead Gods is also available for PS4, Xbox One, and Windows on Steam and Epic Games . Some screenshots are from the Xbox version of Curse of the Dead Gods for action variety.