Heroes of Hammerwatch

Or in other words, Stardew Valley meets Diablo meets the old Hammerwatch in all the best ways. The previous Hammerwatch, while fun and considered the overall evolution to games such as Gauntlet, didn't add many layers of gameplay which perhaps was its biggest flaw. Don't get me wrong, Hammerwatch was a tight experience but it didn't add much to the long-term fun as it almost didn't provide any propper form of progression. After 8-10 hours, you've basically seen the whole game. With Heroes of Hammerwatch (now shortened to just HoH) comes the next step on how to build upon the Hammerwatch/classic Gauntlet formula by actually adding a much deeper sense of progression. HoH adds a hubworld which is similar to Tristram of Diablo or Stardew Valley. As you choose your hero class, of which you can chose 4 beginning classed with 3 other classes unlockable as you progress, you find yourself in this village with the task to rebuild it. You do this by spending gold and ore you can find by going into the randomly generated dungeon of which there is no turning back. Once you die, you respawn back into your village. Every new try provides a new Dungeon so you can think of it as what Diablo 1 did with its Dungeon system. With every time you die, you lose all your gold and ore that you didn't put inside certain mining shafts/elevators that takes it to the village. So with each try there is the typical min-maxing risk that makes Roguelikes/Roguelites so appealing in the first place. Usually the more you try, the better success you will have so expect to die all the time. This might sound frustrating but its not, money and ore can be found very easily even in the first few levels of the dungeon and the feeling of progression comes quickly, even during the first hour of playing the game. Once you have enough gold and ore, you can speak to the Prefect that sits in the townhall to upgrade parts of the village, providing benefits such as upgrade paths for you hero or upgrading your damage output and armor at the Blacksmith or get equipment for you alchemist to improve your healing/mana potions, amongst other things. HoH also has a level up system that enables the player to learn and master new class specific skills, so besides upgrading the village, your hero also levels up which means even if you fail a run, you get at least a tiny sense of progression no matter what happens. Besides all of this, the game encurages you to play different hero classes, as each hero gives special perks to every other hero, depending on how deep you've reached the dungeon. However, even if I praise HoH a lot, this game is not perfect as sometimes playing solo make the game feel a little bit overwhelming at times, especially at the beginning just like the last Hammerwatch HoH is primarily a multiplayer game. But the more you play and upgrade your town, the parts that felt impossible previously become easier however, however these steps might take (much) longer than you might expect. Consider this game a big time sink if you already have experience with games such as Stardew Valley. Overall, HoH builds and improves to what made Hammerwatch great in the first place while improving and fleshing out every aspect in meaningful ways. Multiplayer is available and is as fun just like the old Hammerwatch was. Get this game as fast as you can but consider this a very long game that takes 50+ hours to complete and see everything of. If this is no problem for you then HoH is one of the best games of the Hack and Slash genre and for sure a game you should not miss out from even if weren't a big fan of the first Hammerwatch. NOTE: At the time of this writing I've reached mid-game and have a decent sense of what the game offers and has to offer.