A survival roguelite styled as a bullet-hell 90s RPG is taking the Steam charts by storm.
That game would be Halls of Torment, which is currently sitting pretty on Steam with an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' set of user reviews after nearly 6,000 reviews. The small-time indie from developer Chasing Carrots only just launched a matter of weeks ago in late May, but it looks to already be a hit.
"This is a remarkable step up from Vampire Survivors, it's like going from NES to SNES, now you're playing with power! I'm 55 hours in?!?!? Felt like 5 hours," reads one user review after nearly 80 hours. Damn, saying something is a step up from one of the best games of the past few years is saying a lot.
- 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"
- The Helltaker creator has a new free game with ghost girls instead of demon girls, and after less than a month it's got over 9,000 Steam reviews at 96% positive
And sure, it's easy to see the Vampire Survivors comparison. Halls of Torment employs the auto-attack feature that's at the core of Vampire Survivors, while also maintaining that lovely pixelated art style, complete with hordes of foes to slay. These halls certainly are out to torment you.
On the other hand, and perhaps more excitingly, this is basically Diablo 2 by way of Vampire Survivors. The bullet-hell roguelite takes elements from the classic '90s action-RPG and puts them through their paces here with various character traits and items to bolster your character in the heat of battle.
Halls of Torment has really blown up over the past week, according to SteamDB. The game's all-time concurrent player peak has been steadily bested again and again since July 6, and the highest peak of 26,061 players came just yesterday on July 11. Halls of Torment could be an indie gem everyone's still talking about at the end of the year.
Check out our upcoming indie games roundup for other small-time titles you should definitely be keeping an eye on.
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