This indie fuses the structure of Hades with the horde smashing action of Vampire Survivors

A new indie roguelike is taking the metagame and plot structure of Hades and fusing it with the wave survival of the horde-battling genre popularized by Vampire Survivors. Death Must Die, the Early Access sophomore game from developers Realm Archive, has you undertaking successive expeditions into the underworld and fighting Death's minions.

As fight through each wave other gods will pop up to say witty things and give you blessings to upgrade your attacks, summon minions, and release various automatically-cast spells against the horde. You also collect equipment that gives permanent boosts, unlock new characters, and pick up new starting perks by completing achievements.

Here's the setup: Time is very angry with Death for cheating mortals out of their allotted span on the planet and is loaning you a magic hourglass to go into the underworld and whoop Death's butt personally. The other gods are along for the ride because Death's breaking the rules but also because, as far as I can tell, they all think it'll be very funny to watch you do it. The writing and voice acting aren't perfect, but hey, they are present—a lot more than you can say for most of the genre.

Having spent a few hours with Death Must Die, I'm pretty convinced that the developers are on to something here—early Steam reviews agree, with 92% positive of 4,383 reviews at press time. The balance of movement and manual attacks aren't quite perfect, but the element of dodging telegraphed enemy attacks and projectiles adds something to the formula here. It's not just avoiding getting touched, it's avoiding getting hit. Throw in the occasional larger more dangerous enemy to avoid and you're suddenly playing a much more focused action RPG roguelike while dancing around the horde survival core.

If the developers can continue to refine the core gameplay without overwhelming the screen in red blobs to avoid then Death Must Die has a pretty promising future ahead of it. That and, of course, delivering the kind of deeper metaprogression that we all like to see from the genre.

You can find Death Must Die for $7 on Humble and Steam . It's developed by Realm Archive, who previously made a fusion of card game and visual novel called Kamifuda.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.