33 Immortals will be a long, coordinated climb to the heavens

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The main protagonist wakes up in the depths of the underworld. They’re surrounded by lost souls and recognizable figures from mythology, the latter of who push the hero to forge through the impossible odds and take down the all-powerful deity that awaits at the end. Those who have read the stories about 33 Immortals here at Shacknews are likely aware of the resemblance between Thunder Lotus Games’ latest effort and Supergiant Games’ acclaimed roguelike Hades. However, after spending hours playing through this journey inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, 33 Immortals is a game that felt closer to something like an MMORPG, right down to the desire to push for that impossible raid one more time.

It’s arguably the opening of 33 Immortals that will evoke the most comparisons to Supergiant’s Hades. There’s a training room with different weapons, characters like the angel Beatrice and the departed poet Dante, and the hub world of The Dark Woods illustrated with a beautifully (if somewhat derivatively) hand-drawn art style. The weapons handle competently enough, though the ranged bow may win out with a lot of players, simply because melee weapons like the Sword of Justice felt like a slog by comparison.

After making proper preparations, the idea is to jump into Inferno (or whatever other realm has been unlocked) and battle demons with the goal of ultimately encountering the area’s boss. Rather than fight across individual chambers, players fight across a more wide-open map with different regions and points-of-interest. It’s possible to engage with this aspect of the game solo, but that’s ultimately not the point. Before long, the realization sets in that progress can only be made by rendezvousing with other players. There are six spawn points in the world, so players are often scattered and finding reinforcements becomes part of the gameplay loop.

There’s a world map that allows players to find the location of active players, but there’s a bit of a problem with this feature. Because Inferno is constantly active with players going in and out, there’s no real pause function and there are enemies everywhere. Bringing up the map is almost impossible without having enemies jump down your throat and there are no real safe places to do so since demons will regularly respawn.

There’s ample incentive to meet up with other players and that’s because the way to escape the open world is by completing 12 Torture Chambers. Torture Chambers are trap-filled monster arenas where standard enemies and larger titan-sized foes spawn in and must be dispatched. These areas could be compared to the demon gauntlets in something like Hades, but more old-school players might find them to be something closer to the monster rooms in the Kid Icarus series. Survival is tough, mainly because there are few places in the world to recover health. Teamwork is essential, partly because special moves require three players to trigger.

Running across Inferno and playing through Torture Chambers makes 33 Immortals feel almost novel. It isn’t often that 33-player co-op games come down the pipe, especially roguelikes meant to be completed over time. Where 33 Immortals begins to truly stand out is once the Torture Chambers are completed. At that point, an Ascension Battle opens up along the center of the map, requiring all players to take on one last enemy rush for the right to take on the map’s boss. Surviving the Ascension Battle will then take players to a new map for a boss battle and this is where 33 Immortals felt less like Hades and more like an MMO raid straight out of Hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aypaB0voAWE

Bosses are drawn-out fights that require intense teamwork and coordination to deal with their many moving parts. Lucifer was the Inferno boss and his fight unfolds across multiple phases. This battle demands that teams weaken him by shattering his gauntlets while also dealing with his various attacks and his underlings that will frequently inhabit the field. Players must also be ready to resurrect their teammates, because they will die often. With that said, players can only be revived once before dying permanently, so nothing about these fights should sound easy. That proved especially true after about 15 minutes when I looked up and my jaw dropped at the realization that this giant brute had a whopping ten health bars and our team had only taken down three. It was at this point that the game’s roguelike loop became painfully clear and that success wouldn’t come before putting in many hours of character and weapon leveling. Of course, even then, one of the inherent problems of 33 Immortals is that there’s no guarantee that anybody else queuing in will be at that same level, so finding a capable squad ready to take on God may ultimately be a luck of the draw.

There are undoubtedly aspects of 33 Immortals that will feel similar to other roguelikes, Hades specifically. However, Thunder Lotus Games is putting together something inspired with this approach to 33-player co-op, giving the typical roguelike formula something refreshingly different. It may prove too difficult for some, but nobody ever said getting out of Hell was supposed to be easy.

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2025-03-18 16:45