Heroes of Hammerwatch: Ultimate Edition Review

The curtains in my room are drawn; rubbish and takeaway containers litter the floor; my friends and family haven’t heard from me in days, if not weeks at this point. Have I succumbed to some kind of powerful addictive spell? In a sense, yes. Not, though, to alcohol, tobacco or any illegal substance—oh no. Heroes of Hammerwatch: Ultimate Edition, the latest roguelike dungeon crawler from Crackshell is my ‘drug’ of choice. It may look unassuming—with its Gauntlet-inspired art style and uncomplicated core mechanics—but Heroes of Hammerwatch is a veritable Russian nesting doll of upgrade mechanics and oh-so compelling progression systems that will hook its claws in and keep you locked in for dozens of gloriously addicting hours.

The central gameplay loop is a familiar one. Wander around a hub town and use resources to buy permanent upgrades to your character as well as temporary buffs for the dangers ahead; enter into a procedurally generated, increasingly difficult series of treacherous but resource-filled dungeons; die, and then return to town to spend your hard-won resources on further upgrades. Rinse, repeat and you have Heroes of Hammerwatch in a nutshell. It doesn’t sound so special. Why, then, do I find myself so helplessly engrossed in its rhythm? The answer—I feel—is stretched between two factors.

First, the wealth of upgrade systems that compete for your hard-earned resources. As you proceed through the dungeons, you’ll find gold, ore and earn XP too. Gold is your currency for the majority of the game’s upgrades (power boosts, armour improvements, speed upgrades, critical-hit chance increases and such); ore is the currency used to improve the hub town, unlocking yet more upgrade opportunities; and, finally, XP is used to progress through your class’ ability skill tree. The town upgrades are shared between your characters, but the character upgrades—while permanent—are exclusive to the respective character that purchases them. If all the upgrade types were available from the get-go, there’s no doubt that it would have been overwhelming; by pacing them out with the ‘ore’ system, however, the game eases players into the wide variety of upgrades on offer.

And the second factor in the game’s addictiveness? The difficulty. These dungeons are home to a lot—like a hell of a lot—of enemies, and letting them swarm around you is a near-instant death sentence. Plus, with powerful ‘elite’ enemies dotted around the map, the danger is amplified further. Going hand-in-hand with the difficulty of combat is the game’s risk-reward component. Picking up resources in a dungeon doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to keep them: you’ve got to get them to a specific ‘resource deposit’ point in the dungeon to bring them back to town. If you die with unsecured resources on-hand, they’re gone forever. However, you won’t want to deposit your resources at every opportunity. The more gold sent home, the more you’re taxed by the town (yes, really). With this system, the game tempts you to gamble with your unsecured funds by holding onto them for as long as possible. With the aforementioned difficulty in-mind, however, this is a serious gamble indeed. It’s utterly engrossing, at times frustrating (in that Dark Souls kind of way) and makes for one of the most powerful “just one more go” feelings I’ve ever experienced in a game.

Before diving into Heroes of Hammerwatch proper, you’ll have to choose a class. It’s mostly the standard fantasy RPG lineup: Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard, Thief and the like. You can make as many characters as you wish and progress their abilities side-by-side, so there’s no need to worry about committing to a certain class. You can even customise the characters’ appearance too, although they occupy such a small portion of the screen it hardly makes an appreciable difference. Each class possesses a unique set of attacks, abilities and health/mana stats that lend themselves to distinct playstyles. The Paladin, for example, is a tank who dives into the fray, thinning out the hordes and soaking up damage; the ranger is a long-range combatant who keeps a distance, targeting stronger enemies from afar; and the Gladiator, one of the DLC characters, is a character that keeps on the move and makes use of quick, powerful strikes. These characters and their distinct abilities are designed to work together in co-op, and this is where Heroes of Hammerwatch really shines. Most of my playtime, however, was spent playing solo and I can confirm that it’s still a blast to play without pals.

Also worth a mention are the hidden secrets and ‘trials’ found around the dungeons. Hidden passages can be followed and cracks in walls crumble away to reveal hidden chances to earn stat-boosting items (unfortunately lost upon death). The optional trials and obstacles scattered around—dodging fireballs, evading spikes and solving simple puzzles—also typically reward players with items too. These accumulate over the course of a play session, seeing characters becoming multiple times more powerful at the end of a run than they were at the start of it. Don’t expect a wealth of interesting and inspired items—this isn’t The Binding of Isaac. Items in Heroes of Hammerwatch are mostly limited to the “+5 to Attack Power” variety. A little boring, I must admit.

In addition to the uninteresting items, my major gripe with Heroes of Hammerwatch, sadly, relates to how damn small everything is on-screen. Especially playing on the Switch in handheld mode, it’s hard to even make out enemies, let alone the hidden cracks that appear in walls. Furthermore, the aesthetic style, although a clear homage to the original Gauntlet, is downright unpleasant to look at by today’s standards. It’s not a huge issue, but a cleaner art style would definitely have improved my experience with the game.

Even with these niggles in mind, Heroes of Hammerwatch is the most addicting game I've had the pleasure of playing all year (Animal Crossing: New Horizons included). It won't be for everyone, but those after a punishing co-op roguelike with loads of permanent progression systems will find themselves in paradise with Heroes of Hammerwatch.