revealed a surprising amount of depth for what could first appear to be a simple action-roguelike. And there’s so much more for me to see: What’s the Ascension Battle like? How hard is it to face down Lucifer?

It offers both light and heavy attacks, coupled with a call-back attack that pulls in all the arrows you have shot to deal a blast of damage to anyone in its path. Coupled with the weapon, players also have a handy dodge for either pin-point escapes from damage or simply kiting enemies.

With dozens of enemies and allies on-screen at any given time, this alone is a notable achievement by developer Thunder Lotus.

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Finally, Virgil (based on the ancient Roman poet) is also here, managing the Compendium should you need a refresher on how the game works and if really wanted to know the official name of that creepy silkworm with teeth that killed you on your last run (for the record, it’s called a Mangiatore).

This is a large-scale cooperative dungeon diver roguelike, all streamlined for accessibility so that you can enjoy the best parts of a typical raid experience without much of the setup.

While that isn’t a massive amount of time to pump into a roguelike, I think I managed to grasp the title’s unique gameplay loop and the direction the developers want to take it.

That Dark Woods safe haven I mentioned is where weapons are chosen, perks are wished for, and upgrades are purchased using loot from previous runs. At the early access launch, the title has four weapons to choose from: sword, bow, daggers, and staff, each offering a different play styles, movesets, and powers. After trying out the sword’s heavy slashes and blocks, the staff’s AOE blasts, and the dagger’s unrelenting aggressiveness, the bow was what I clicked with.

What I can't comment on just yet is the price of the game. The studio says it is revealing the price tag at launch, and not even reviewers have received this information early. When the official number releases in a couple of hours, I will re-evaluate my score in this review to see if it requires bumping a 33 Immortals Gameplay number down or up, depending on the value the game offers. The Early Access price has been revealed to be $19.99. I have bumped up my review's score to 8.5.

The later runs, I was also completing meta objectives that would unlock permanent upgrades in the future. Building that perfect character so I wouldn’t let my fellow immortals down has a certain nice feeling to it, even though the possibility of meeting the same random player groups can be low.

Annoncé pour la toute première fois en juin 2023 lors du Xbox Games Showcase, l’intrigant rogue-lite « massivement multijoueur » 33 Immortals sort aujourd’hui en early access.

The available content isn’t a small amount, but feels just a little underwhelming when there’s promises being made for more things that are coming in a few months’ time. A small delay could have meant shipping the game with at least the missing options menu items.

Then there’s the lack of real coordination tools. With pelo voice or text chat, you’re left to hope your team naturally understands the plan—which they often don’t—or rely on emoticons to direct those around you. Even if the emote wheel has arrows and objective’s icons, most of the time players won’t follow them.

Then there’s the one-man army. The ultimate dude who has min-maxed his build, got the perfect rolls during the run, and wants to get through the boss with or without his team. I saw all variations of these through my brief time with the game.