My friends with over 300 hours played have recommended this game to me countless times and I finally gave in to try it.

The game is not user friendly and is extremely punishing. Not at all intuitive and extremely buggy when ping is over 150ms with pallets throwing you to the other side or causing a slow crawl through the window when running straight at it. Netcode is actually very subpar and the game seems horribly balanced towards killers rather than survivors, at least for the bottom 95% of players.

The ranking system is completely useless, putting you against very experienced and seasoned players who deranked on purpose just to win. There are no rewards or merits for gaining rank so there is no real incentive to do well at all which leads to killers camping survivors without any chance of getting saved past the first hook. New players have no chance at all to learn how to play the game because they almost always get found and killed within 60 seconds or less.

Ultimately I find the concept very interesting but stating the execution is poor... is frankly an understatement. It needs a lot of balance work but the developers don't seem to care about the majority of players, only the opinions of the top 5%. My only regret is that I can no longer refund this game.

Is this game grindy? Yes. Is that a demerit? No. Why? Because it's fun.

If you are the type of person who loves mindlessly dungeon crawling then you found a place to call home.

If you played Realm of the Mad God then you will love this game. It is easy to pick up, easy to play, and the community is amazing.

Check out the official Discord server to join the ride! The developers are extremely active and receptive towards the community's complaints, suggestions, and advice. With constant updates and Hammerwatch 2 on the horizon eventually, you will have a casual and fun game to play for months or years to come.

https://discord.gg/hammerwatch

This game truly brings back the nostalgia from MSN Gaming Zone days. If you were an Age of Empires fan of old and miss the 999 taunts, the epic deathmatches or crazy RPG scenarios, definitely buy this upgraded version. It is very worth it!