Halls of Torment has already been tearing up sales charts during its early access tenure, and now that it's out in full, this bullet-hell roguelike in '90s RPG clothing is one of the year's best-rated releases.
In case the trailer below doesn't slap you across the face with its influences, Halls of Torment's gist is that it's basically a Vampire Survivors-style survival roguelike where you descend into the underworld and fight against increasingly dense hordes until the screen's literally flooding with projectiles and pixel blood - but it's all wrapped up in Diablo 2's nostalgic retro aesthetics and a "quest-based meta progression."
After spending 17 months in early access and drawing in a crowd of 900,000 total players, developer Chasing Carrot properly launched the game on September 24, where it was almost immediately met with universal praise. More than 23,000 Steam user reviews have 'overwhelmingly positive' things to say about its devilishly moreish loop, making it easily one of the highest-rated and best roguelikes of 2024.
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- This slick roguelike deckbuilder is shoulder-to-shoulder with Balatro and Slay the Spire on Steam top sellers, and its dev is feeling the pressure: "The definition of walking among giants"
"Fight unholy horrors from beyond and survive wave after wave of enemies until you face one of the tormented Lords," the game's Steam description reads. "Strengthen your hero with character traits, abilities, and items. Create a new powerful build during each run. Explore various underground expanses and find new powerful items that enable you to venture even deeper into the abyss."
Chasing Carrots hasn't outlined a solid post-launch roadmap because, as the team says in its recent blog post, it's unsure of "how to proceed next with the halls, but we know we want to keep new and smaller updates coming, and maybe even add some additional features." Regardless, the 500+ quests already in the game should keep you occupied until your pupils dry up.
Check out our upcoming indie games roundup for other small-time titles you should definitely be keeping an eye on.
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