💦 FULL SET: Id/voidflakes/recommended/ - Full Gallery 2025

Generally speaking, I hate pixel-art games. But just like the first Hammerwatch, this looks fantastic.

Generally speaking, I *REALLY* hate procedural generation. But this pulls it off brilliantly.

While the first Hammerwatch was based on beating fixed levels, HoH generates a new map each and every time you play. This is a rogue-lite rather than campaign-based game, where death is the end of your run, but not a complete loss. If you bank the gold and ore you've collected it will go back to your town, which acts as a lobby for purchasing upgrades on your characters. Although the game is indeed pretty grindy to begin with, once you've got your characters and town levelled up a bit you'll be able to progress to ever higher levels, which present a greater risk for greater rewards - more gold means more powahhh! ;)

There are a nice handful of classes including melee, ranged, spellcasters, and healers, each with their own strengths and weaknesses - all derived from the original game but expanded upon to give them more skills, which you have to choose carefully to maximise your play style. Do you play carefully, or rush into battle like a manic barbarian? Do you play solo, or team up with other adventurers? Are you a crowd-controlling tactician, or a tanky powerhouse? There's a bit of something for everyone! But be prepared, you will need to up your game to progress - play smart, avoid traps, don't get backed into a corner, and most of all, LEARN TO DODGE!!!

There are a few annoying things which can hamper gameplay, most especially for me is that the slightest touch on your gamepad's analog stick moves you at full speed. If you have an Xbox 360 pad, a VERY common issue is that the analogs don't centre perfectly, so you'll stop moving only to find your character starts sprinting straight into a spike trap! Occasionally an archer will shoot at you and miss, but you'll still take damage. With the proc-gen/RNG nature of the game, sometimes your runs will be highly rewarding, while others will be absolutely terrible - you might set out for gathering as much ore as possible, only to receive 2 pieces across 5 floors. Or you'll want to progress as far as possible but only ever pick up crappy items which don't suit your character at all (WHY do I need all this increased spellpower on my melee Paladin?!). Unlike HW1, shared/split-screen isn't available in this game which sucks, however the devs have said they plan to add it in a future update.

At time of writing I have played for 90 hours, and expect to get another 90 out of it by the end of the month :p Heroes of Hammerwatch is a fantastically fun game to play by yourself or with friends, where every run feels worthwhile and progressing to the harder levels, beating the more difficult bosses, feels like you're achieving something good every time. It's a very pick-up-and-play kind of game that you can jump into any time, and even has a mechanic to skip past levels (but lose out on the loot gained from them) if you don't want to repeat the early stuff over and over.

Would strongly recommend, especially if you love old-school games with a dash of new flavour. Very addictive and a great laugh with friends! :)

Generally speaking, I hate pixel-art games. But just like the first Hammerwatch, this looks fantastic. Generally speaking, I *REALLY* hate procedural generation. But this pulls it off brilliantly. While the first Hammerwatch was based on beating fixed levels, HoH generates a new map each and every time you play. This is a rogue-lite rather than campaign-based game, where death is the end of your run, but not a complete loss. If you bank the gold and ore you've collected it will go back to your town, which acts as a lobby for purchasing upgrades on your characters. Although the game is indeed pretty grindy to begin with, once you've got your characters and town levelled up a bit you'll be able to progress to ever higher levels, which present a greater risk for greater rewards - more gold means more powahhh! ;) There are a nice handful of classes including melee, ranged, spellcasters, and healers, each with their own strengths and weaknesses - all derived from the original game but expanded upon to give them more skills, which you have to choose carefully to maximise your play style. Do you play carefully, or rush into battle like a manic barbarian? Do you play solo, or team up with other adventurers? Are you a crowd-controlling tactician, or a tanky powerhouse? There's a bit of something for everyone! But be prepared, you [i]will[/i] need to up your game to progress - play smart, avoid traps, don't get backed into a corner, and most of all, LEARN TO DODGE!!! There are a few annoying things which can hamper gameplay, most especially for me is that the slightest touch on your gamepad's analog stick moves you at full speed. If you have an Xbox 360 pad, a VERY common issue is that the analogs don't centre perfectly, so you'll stop moving only to find your character starts sprinting straight into a spike trap! Occasionally an archer will shoot at you and miss, but you'll still take damage. With the proc-gen/RNG nature of the game, sometimes your runs will be highly rewarding, while others will be absolutely terrible - you might set out for gathering as much ore as possible, only to receive 2 pieces across 5 floors. Or you'll want to progress as far as possible but only ever pick up crappy items which don't suit your character at all (WHY do I need all this increased spellpower on my melee Paladin?!). Unlike HW1, shared/split-screen isn't available in this game which sucks, however the devs [b]have[/b] said they plan to add it in a future update. At time of writing I have played for 90 hours, and expect to get another 90 out of it by the end of the month :p Heroes of Hammerwatch is a fantastically fun game to play by yourself or with friends, where every run feels worthwhile and progressing to the harder levels, beating the more difficult bosses, feels like you're achieving something good every time. It's a very pick-up-and-play kind of game that you can jump into any time, and even has a mechanic to skip past levels (but lose out on the loot gained from them) if you don't want to repeat the early stuff over and over. Would strongly recommend, especially if you love old-school games with a dash of new flavour. Very addictive and a great laugh with friends! :)