Nyheder
33 Immortals captures the joy of raiding in a 33-player roguelike
J
John Walker
That’s 33 Immortals, a third-person 33-player co-op game of spontaneous teamwork that mixes Hades-like roguelike dungeoneering with the improvised alliances of an MMO raid. In closed beta ahead of a planned Early Access later in 2024, we had a chance to work with ever-changing gangs of strangers to try to take down God’s own judgment.
Bad news: you’re dead. As a damned soul, you join a rebellious group who rejects God’s condemnation of your former lives by fighting against the hordes of the afterlife to battle for your eternal wellbeing. (So, quite big stakes, really.) You begin in the Dark Woods, a sort of limbo-space with retail. Here you are taught the ways of battle by your guide Beatrice, and then you tweak your aesthetics, choose your Perks, monitor your Relics, and—most importantly—choose your weapon for the next run. It’s the hub, basically.
Weapon choice makes a massive difference to your experience in any run. The game first introduces you to its Bow of Hope, and it’s interesting to note that despite this early slot, it’s proving the most underrated choice in the beta. Everyone else is wrong—the bow is the best. You have six arrows, which can be either quickly fired for a light hit or more slowly powered up for a heavy attack. But there's a twist: You then recall your arrows by hitting Y, which does further damage to anything they hit on their return. This means you can be wonderfully tactical, deliberately peppering a distant enemy with all six, then recalling them as a tougher foe runs in for a melee attack. Boom—all six pierce him.
If that doesn't sound appealing, you can try a more tanky approach with the Sword of Justice, a greatsword that offers you the option to block—a very powerful block that does all sorts of damage to anyone who gets too close. Timing is everything here, and it’s perfect for being in the frontline of any gang. The Daggers of Greed are fast melee weapons that build up a “Greed” meter with every hit. Once it's full, you can pull off a powerful pounce that ends with a slicing attack. The final starter weapon is the Staff of Sloth, a much more complicated choice that allows you to fire medium-distance orbs that do damage and fill a “Sloth” meter. Once it's full, you can trigger a spell called Torpor which slows all enemies within a zone.
None of these will let you battle the hordes of Hell alone. If you try to solo this game, you’re definitely going to die (again), mostly because the game’s mobs are designed to exploit weaknesses in each weapon’s playstyle. Oh, and when you enter any of a run’s Torture Chambers—essential to complete if you want your character to Ascend and thus be able to take on a level’s boss—you’ll be immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies. This is inescapably a co-op game, but it's (rather wonderfully) one where you’re never lacking for a group to team up with.
Let me describe a typical run to explain this. From the Dark Wood, you run toward the entrance to Inferno, the first area that allows 33 people per instance. Here, you have a large map to run around, packed with a range of enemy types doing God’s work (i.e., trying to kill you). If you play solo, you’ll likely be able to fight groups of mobs, open some chests, gather the in-game currencies that let you improve your discovered Perks between runs, and pick up health-restoring Bones. You’ll also have a chance at gathering a purple resource known as Dust, which allows you to use Dust Shrines to temporarily improve your health, attack, or “empathy”--the characteristic that improves your co-op-based abilities.
However, it’ll be a struggle. It's far better to see other players and wordlessly join them. It’s fantastic, watching and partaking in the peculiar migratory patterns of a group of strangers trying to run together as a small group, but with no communication to determine a leader or even a direction. Everyone has their own agenda: perhaps desperately needing a Bone Shrine to get a bit more health, or wanting to take down a mini-boss to open a larger chest, and sheer momentum seems to determine which wins out. (There's a selection of emotes that are intended to help, but these are vague, and no one seems to be using them at this early stage.)
Then, as you’re scrappily staying alive, large golden circles will appear in the world, meaning an impending environmental danger to avoid, but also the opening of a new gate to a Torture Chamber. These let in groups of six to face a far more intense battle with at least one mini-boss within, so any ragtag group can all run over together and dive in. When enough of these have been completed by all 33 players on the map, the opportunity for Ascension begins. This means everyone must run to one of three locations—the rest of the area becomes lethally toxic—where there’s yet another epic battle to kill enough enemies to light a large golden star on the ground, allowing all who have survived to… face another EPIC boss fight. Phew.
Should you die at any point during any of this, you become a little spritely spirit, allowing you 30 seconds to be resurrected by any other player. Succeed, and you’ll be on half-health for a last chance try. This again encourages teamwork and ensures you’re never playing alone.
The most important thing is this: 33 Immortals works! Creating a game that depends on the actions of complete strangers to work together was a huge risk, but its careful design ensures that you're not relying on anyone’s altruism. Going alone will mean failure. Improvising wayward, temporary gangs of aligned players proves far more fun than struggling solo. It's a game that captures the feeling of going on a raid without all of the usual accompanying faff.
33 Immortals is available on the Epic Games Store. We’ve already delved into the artistic inspiration behind the world and the design of the game’s first boss, Lucifer.