Heroes of Hammerwatch II

It's fun at first, but quickly becomes repetitive because it's too difficult, so you keep doing the same content over and over. There are also some torture mechanics in play that are annoying. Idle mana regen, for example, is excruciating if you're out of potions. Respec has a cost and it's steep, even at a low level. Death penalty is also too much. These are all mistakes that were weeded out of RPGs a long time ago, imo. So if the goal is to emulate first gen MMORPGs, mission accomplished, but I personally don't want to return to those times.

First game was great with a lot more content. Feel like they leveraged their reputation to deliver a shorter game at a higher price point.

As much as I loved Heroes of Hammerwatch 1, this game sadly disappoints on several levels. The game isn't all bad, but I sadly can't recommend it.

My main gripes with the game boil down to a few reasons:

Cons

1. No ability to "Downscale" your character.

In the first game, they added an option to downscale your game so that everyone who joined would be essentially put on the same level and stats. This was an amazing mechanic, as the game was very easy to beat for the first 15 NGs, resulting in a large gap between players and essentially making it so that you would either be getting carried or carrying others when you joined random players or friends who started playing later/earlier than you did. This mechanic allowed players to actually play the game together without there being a huge power imbalance.

While it wasn't perfect and could have been improved, it was a welcome addition and filled that role of allowing others to play with each other without carrying/being carried. In HoH2, instead of them improving it's functionality to be more "all encompassing" it's instead completely omitted from the game. Now you're essentially all but guaranteed to be joining others who are substantially farther ahead or behind you in terms of character progression, resulting in either getting carried or carrying others, both of which aren't nearly as fun as playing with someone on a similar level as you.

2. Church "Donations". The issue I have with this recent addition to the game is 2 main reasons.

First, this benefit to weapon damage/spell damage/damage reduction/health regeneration is not based off the host of the lobby. Meaning, every player will have their own individual level of progress to this donation stat, resulting in players who've cheated, played with cheaters and benefited from ill-gotten gains, or simply just played a ton, will have a huge donation stat bonus which will make that player significantly stronger than anyone else they may play with.

Second, this stat has no limit or cap based on your current NG difficultly progression. Meaning, if you play a ton, play with cheaters/get carried, or cheat yourself, you can improve this stat to a point where you simply just can't die and do infinite damage. This, obviously, trivializes the game. And it's a major issues because even if their donation stats are legit, it results in a significant power imbalance between players that can't be controlled in anyway. It's just a badly implemented mechanic in it's current state that ruins multiplayer.

3. Missing mechanics from the first game and obviously missing tiers of gear/trinkets/classes.

While people might say "HoH 1 was out for years, so it's of course going to have more mechanics and improvements" is just plain stupid. This game is a sequel and should have benefited from all the improvements and implemented mechanics that HoH 1 acquired through the years, and it should of had them ON RELEASE. Now, I strongly believe they will add these mechanics and missing tiers of gear/trinkets/classes...eventually, it's just sad it's so glaringly obviously missing.

Pros

1. Improved graphics

I've seen that this is somewhat contested by players who played HoH1, but I believe by far the majority will agree it's an improvement and it will certainly draw newer players into the series.

2. Greater variety in character skills

Yes, there is still a lot of balancing needed for some of the character's subclasses, but overall it's a huge improvement for replayability...if they can get all the subclasses in a similar state of competitiveness. Which I am confident will happen.

3. Equipment

This further adds to the ability for players to enhance their playstyle. While the game is missing tiers of gear (Epic and Legendary are currently missing), I am certain they will add them and it will further enhance a player's playstyle and allow from some unique setups.

Summary

I want this game to be good, I want this game to be a complete improvement over HoH1...but that just isn't the case at this moment. Despite the improvements they've added to HoH2, all of the missing mechanics and obviously missing tiers of trinkets/equipment/classes make me not recommend this game currently. In particularly, the glaring progression issues with character levels, titles, and donation stats not being able to be controlled in anyway in a multiplayer setting is really upsetting and results in this game being something you will be primarily playing solo. If you do decide to venture into multiplayer, you will either be getting carried or doing the carrying yourself, which gets very boring very fast.

It's fun until NG+

Then it becomes the most soul sucking boring game in existence.
You're punished for existence, tank is no longer playable, and everything takes 1000 years to kill.

What a pure disrespect of my limited free time.

The base game is good except for one game breaking issue. If you save multiple profiles (cloud or locally), if you try to switch to a different profile by clicking the Home button, it will erase all characters across all saves... It's the equivalent to saving in Skyrim, then when you try to load into another save file, it wipes all your progress across all saves. It's like they didn't even test this save functionality. You can use this as a cautionary tale to not click the Home icon, and especially don't buy this game if you need to cloud save across multiple machines.

tl;dr - if you played the first game, I would recommend waiting to see if this one gets better. If you're new to this series, just play the first game; it's really good and this one doesn't measure up.

Unfortunately, this game doesn't do enough to set itself apart from the first, with several added disadvantages due to being a new game:

*Not as much content. The first game has two decently priced DLC that add two more entire, full length dungeons as well as a bunch of new features (arena, statues, mercenaries that are like a permadeath hardmode, etc)

*Scaling is quite bad in a lot of places because the game isn't polished with the new mechanics in mind, so the further you get, the worse things feel.

*Some of the design choices that do make it very different from the first game are infuriating, namely Shadow Curse. It applies a permanent defense debuff for each stack, and there are a LOT of enemies that apply it, including every boss except the first. It makes melee/tanky classes absolute hell to play, and no matter how strong you are, you're always playing kind of scared because stacking enough curse will doom your run eventually. Also, weapon damage is just plainly inferior to skill damage on all accounts, which is very sad because of the new weapon system.

*Special mention for the last area of the main dungeon: honestly, fuck that place. Long, thin hallways packed with cloning bullet hell enemies that are nearly immune to one type of elemental damage with invisible traps that hit like a truck and saddle you with loads of curse at the same time? This is the worst designed area in BOTH games. Can I clear it? Sure, quite consistently. Is it an absolutely horrendous experience every single time? Without a doubt. It needs to be overhauled. This place sucks. I dread it in every run. It's an awful level. It feels like Crackshell didn't even bother TRYING to play it even once, it's that blatantly bad.

So to conclude: just play Heroes of Hammerwatch 1 if you're new to this series. It's better than this game. At least for now.

I loved the first few hours, but the lack of dynamic changes really makes grinding a chore.

I've played Vamp Survivor, Hades and more which have got the balance down really well.

It needs more campaigns, something to change the map monotony, or it'll stay a grinder and not build on some pretty decent game bones.

I'm nearing 50 hours and I have enjoyed playing each character on the first playthrough. The spells are cool, the classes feel distinct (especially after level 10), and the rougelite aspects, such as trinket attuning, give some nice "power up" feeling to the game.

However the game quickly stagnates after the first playthrough. Enemies get much stronger, with the increases to player power (with the exception of a class or two) lagging far behind. In addition, the town building feature ends quite abruptly and then that's it, your resources are then meant to alter runs (make them a little easier). You could make the point that the developers are trying to work this out (as seen in the frequent patches made to the game), but then what did I buy? Many who have reviewed the game already are critical of the "bare-bones" feeling. As if this is an early access product as opposed to a completed game and I have to agree.

This is an okay game in its current state with the potential to be absolutely fantastic. For now, I would recommend wish-listing and monitoring its progress in the coming months.

KEEP AN EYE ON THIS GAME.
Game as good bones, needs some meat.

The main game play loop is doing runs and pushing ng+'s, it is a fun one. However, the current lack of end game or progression is keeping it back.

You can easily get your money's worth in playing right now. Crackshell has been continually updating, they did have to decrease support in order to focus on their game. (Hammerwatch 2, thats why it's review bombed right now.) Later down the line this game could truly be a great find!

Initially super fun.
After you've done NG it's just a really unrewarding grind.
You just go through the same exact halls over and over and over again killing the same 3 enemies over and over and over again.
The "builds" you get each run consists of either more damage, more sustain or more resources. None of which feels like it really does anything. Nothing is build defining, it's just so same-y every single run.
Only difference in builds is "Your damage is now ICE instead of FIRE! WOW!" pretty much.

I haven't done the alt-grind yet, because the only fun variety is the subclasses - And it takes WAY too long to reach level 10 to even try out or explore the subclasses on each character. Just another unrewarding chore.

My biggest problems with the game;
-No variety, all runs feel the same. Only exception is the odd run getting only absolute garbage items and it's a bigger chore than usual to get through the levels.
-Too many same-y enemies for the amount of HP they have, it's a chore to slug through the levels when you're level capped. There's no reward AT ALL killing enemies, and there's a metric f*ckton of them everywhere.
-Way too expensive meta upgrades (Camp upgrades)
-A lot of character-specific meta upgrades feels like they should had been shared across characters, I don't want to redo my grind 8 times or however many classes there are for basic upgrades. At least not when it's so expensive. Lower cost and it would feel completely alright.

My impression of the game after having played HoH1 as well; Lazy cashcow with bloated grinding.

On the plus side, it controls really well and it has very fun gameplay if it wasn't for the extreme grind and lack of variety. Would've been a pretty good game if the fun factor was QA'd properly. If it was also expanded upon and wasn't so tiny it could've become a great game even.

All maps feel the same—the only difference between runs is the layout. Itemization is uninspired, merely adding stats without meaningful impact. Unlocking everything separately for each character feels like an artificial time sink. Right now, the game lacks engagement; at the very least, there should be more variety between runs, since that's the entire gameplay loop.

I’ll return in a year to see if things have improved.

Borring gameplay loop. need way more varaity in maps, and the gameplay itself is just press buttons without any thought. Builds are bacically impossible to control, and you just get random stuff and have to llive with it.
Secrets are nice, and bossfights needs some balancing but is nice in general

Ehhhhhh? Eh? I dunno. It's just kind of repetitive. It doesn't encapsulate the best parts of an ARPG or a roguelite. It's almost purely built around grinding

It actually almost feels like an ARPG mixed with an idler more than anything. It's very much just about running over and over again, incremental improvements, until finally you stat check through the bosses and stuff. There is SOME skill involved (mostly kiting. Actually almost entirely kiting), but your choices have a minimal impact on anything that happens in a fight.

The "roguelite" stuff is my biggest disappointment. The in-run trinkets and "skill orbs" BARELY have an impact. They're functionally just varieties of stat boosts (+dmg or +sustain or +tanky) and so it's really just about picking the strongest one presented. In most cases it has next to no impact on how you actually play the character. You have class specializations which do have an impact but you pick that in town, and it just adds 1 active skill and 1 passive to your already existing class abilities, so it's not always much of a shift.

The shortcuts you can unlock are also not really great, because you end up with less resources that way, and resources are ultimately all that matter. So if you want to progress, you are just blasting through low tier enemies for 20-40 minutes per run then continuing on to the harder stuff and then finally to the level where there are mobs that might insta kill you. Being able to save anywhere in a run (in single player) is fantastic but the runs themselves are just uninteresting after you've seen in through a few times.

In less than 14 hours (sat with it open for a few hours once while I had to go do something) I upgraded enough to get through the final boss. I could try to do that with other characters (and might) but you end up just rerunning the same content again and again and again and again. It's just less than the sum of its' parts.

I actually really like the idea of the town building as the progress element, but the rest of the game kinda falls flat from that. I think they need to really dial up the roguelite bits so the runs are more dynamic. That's ultimately what's missing from the game - variety.

It's not bad. But it's not good. I'd recommend a buncha other ARPGs if you want that or a buncha other roguelites if you want that. This doesn't fulfill either well enough for me to recommend it.

It's good. Doesn't feel as good as the first one, but it's mostly because how good your character is is now based on luck of the draw skill upgrades instead of a skill tree. Also projectiles are a nightmare, they're fast, they track, and depending on how much stuff is on your screen they smack. Some minor bugs and gripes are annoying. Very stylish compared to the first though. Bring back the Sun/Moon Temple? Or something cool with the Pirate Cove? Idk. Also Release the Priest.

Great pixel-like ARPG ala Diablo done in a roguelike style. Loops involve running the same general environments until death where upon various currencies are taken back to town to unlock meta progression over a slew a catagories. Features a variety of classes that one is encouraged to swap between to unlock permanent global buffs for all characters.

Decent as a solo title but far more entertaining with online-coop.

Yes, BUT*
(Never played Hammewatch/Heroes of Hammerwatch)

I really do enjoy the game. It's a fun, simple, relatively decent scaling game with some unique classes and playstyles to mess around with. The collections, in-game achievements, and upgrades are really fun to find and collect. Each class has subclasses, there's a different weapons that are locked between classes, the dungeon generation is different each time, and there are plenty od different playstyle, so there's some variety. The dungeon itself is also nicely designed. You can easily sink a couple dozen hours into this game with or without friends to try the different classes, grab all the different items and skill upgrades, and watch your base grow. The base is my favorite aspect, there's a lot of life in the layout and design of the starting town as you watch it grow and expand. I will definitely keep this game in a back pocket, as it's not the best rogue-like dungeon runner our there, but certainly not a bad find to pick up.

BUT*

It's relatively lacking in replayability. After getting to NG+ for multiple characters, the gameplay loop grows slightly stale. The generation and monsters are different each run but the patterns and fights repeat the same loop. Attack, group them up, kill them, recover, repeat. Items and upgrades don't really change the gameplay loop, just make numbers larger/change statistics. The mechanics don't change either, as most changes in NG+ revolved around shadow curse and heavily debuffing your charecters. Don't get me wrong, the game is amazing. There's plenty of upgrades, titles, and numbers that grow larger and larger, but at the end of the day, this playstyle is not for me. I'm waiting to see more content, more maps/pathways, and maybe new upgrades and trinkets that really feel like they change the gameplay loop.

For more details, I agree with everything Maru states here in their review:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198060384439/recommended/619820/

So far basic but fun, I would wait for a sale though. Not really worth $18 so far ---$10 would be a solid value

Multiplayer carnage (make sure to amend the ini to allow for 20 players and have a blast)

Its a great roguelike with progression and a solid combat system

This is straight up bait and switch. It is a half-baked, early access game.

Have you ever watched a boring movie, and waited the entire movie for the "twist", only for it to never come? That's this game. Though I have 20+ hours, I would say I actually saw all of the content of this game after about 4 hours. I kept playing after that expecting there to be significantly more content to come with the grind. There was not.

You see all of the same trinkets every time. You see the same bosses each time, you see the same levels in mostly the same formation each time. Every run is exactly the same. The balance feels arbitrary and pointless, with most choices just subpar and pointless.

I have no proof, but there is no doubt in my mind these developers had significantly more planned, but decided to throw their hands up and give up. I have early-access filtered from my store for a reason. I will never buy a product from them again.

I have never played the first game, so this review does not compare it to the first game.

This is one of the best rogue-like & dungeon crawler games, quite repetitive but not boring. Job, equip, and skill mechanisms can be combined and customized according to how you play.

This game worth every penny!

It's not a bad game by any means, but after playing through with a couple of characters and trying some NG+ I just don't see anything special about it at all.

This is a very generic and basic ARPG, and the Roguelite elements are extremely limited - while there are different skill orbs and trinkets to find each run, the balance between skills isn't great and there aren't very many different options, so you'll be aiming for the exact same skill orb setup every run.

Very few of the Trinkets are transformative at all and the vast majority of them can be described simply as "a number goes up". At 25 hours in I have yet to pick something up in a run that changed how I played the rest of the run. A character's playstyle is set in stone the moment you choose their subclass.

Build variety is very limited too. Each class has a small number of different skill paths to choose from. Normally you would call these "skill trees" but in HoH2 they are straight lines so maybe "skill bamboo" would be more appropriate. Your character's skills will never really evolve in any meaningful way, the numbers just go up.

There are a few different weapon types to use but for most of them the only difference in how they play is in their weapon skill (if they have one), and again these are poorly balanced - some weapon skills are simply flat-out better than others which renders the worse options as borderline useless. A one handed melee weapon feels like every other one handed melee weapon, whether you're using a dagger or a mace.

There's only one mission to play at the moment, and while the layout of it's levels does slightly change from one run to the next it's not enough to stop things from getting very repetitive very quickly. Especially as your characters get stronger and more of the levels become trivial, you'll find yourself skipping enemies and running through environments because they're just not worth the time to engage with anymore. It becomes possible to skip some of the early levels but doing so will mean that you miss out on resources, skill orbs, and equipment, so from a min/max perspective this is almost inarguably the wrong choice to do.

Now, this might seem like a pretty scathing criticism but I'll reiterate that it's not a "bad" game at all. It's just not particularly "good" either. It doesn't roguelite well enough to actually be a roguelite, and it doesn't ARPG well enough to stand out from the crowd of other ARPGs.

If you can pick this up on a substantial discount in a sale then it's fine to get just for the sake of mindlessly killing a few hours with. I will probably continue to play it while I'm listening to podcasts and things like that because I already bought it and it gives my eyes and my hands something to do, but I could do that with literally any other ARPG that I could've bought instead.

I have been anticipating the release. I've played a lot of Heroes of Hammerwatch, Hammerwatch 1+2. I was really hyped.

This game is good, the big problem however is that it is really short. Most of the assets seem to have been reused from Hammerwatch 2 so I expected a really long run, but we kind of finished it in about 18 hours? We were close to finishing it earlier but wiped in the last portion of health of the final boss.
I know it has NG+ and so on, but I really expected there to be more content, more levels, more bosses etc. I was harshly disappointed when we killed the Avatar and the game was over.

Sure we will play again on NG+ and we will play other classes, but I feel 2-3 more bosses would've done the game very well.

That being said, the game is great and fun and the new features are cool. Well done!

Amazing game, one of the very few Rogue-lites that actually catches me.

I never played the first game, but my impression of this game are through and through enjoyable. Roguelites are all about pacing progression with your failures, and this one does so in an incredibly satisfying way. Firstly, leveling up one class grantes benefits to all others, and secondly you get to build a town that bit by bit unlocks new functions and lets you push the RNG in your favor. You always feel like you are making progress and getting stronger, and apart from stats there is a good amount of player skill involved as well, and I am thankful for that.

Gameplay wise it's a top down twin-stick like combat game, and each of the 7 classes feels pretty good and playable into the NG+++ area. Each of the 7 classes has unique skills and they all feel very distinct in how they deal damage, need to adapt to certain enemies and deal with defense.

Want to constantly spam heal? Play Paladin.
Want to use life leech? Warlock.
Who needs heal if you have damage resistance? Wizard doesn't need sustain, they got barriers.
Who wants to get hit at all? Just dodge and parry everything like a Rogue.

The further you get into the game the more you learn to appreciate the quirks of all the classes, and that is a beatiful variety that not even games like Hades got right. The equipment you find is randomized, but as you progress you will be able to enchant it and change all bonuses, essentially eliminating the RNG part, this feels really good and invites you to try sick builds.

There are some issues, as well. The scaling in the higher NGs pushes you more towards specific playstyles, and a lot of items and trinkets just scale horribly or not at all. Over the first days, Crackshell have done a good job at adjusting, however some mechanics and items are still inferior, and getting an Epic trinket or a Meteor scroll should feel good and not like you just drew a dud.

Shadow curse, an NG+ mechanic that reduces your defenses and armor by a lot, but can also give you more attack or spell power, is currently not well implemented, since it's RNG if you find the buff that lets you use it in your favour, and enemy attacks that inflict it are not well telegraphed.

All in all, I did not go in with huge expectations and this game made roguelites fun for me again. It's a great example on how to pace progression mechanics and balance player skill and stats in a game. Absolutely worth the full price.

If you look at the game as a stand alone rogue-lite, it is very fine and I recommend you try it out.

But if you have played Heroes of Hammerwatch 1, you will feel HoH2 really lacks the things that made the game unique in hoh1.

-A lot less trinkets
-Many of the upgrades in town are just stats upgrade
-The upgrade tree of your town now is gone, making you uncertain about what you want for the current stage
-The item system is not really neccesory, most of them are just stats stacking, which is not very fun to me
-We can't start the game with any trinkets via the anvil nor the shop, with the new introduced in-game rogue-like elements, making the game very RNG based
-The new weapon slot given to the classes makes them a lot less unique to the other classes like in hoh1
-hoh1 every class had 7 abilities (4active+3passive), now we just have 4 based and 2 more for each mastery class. TBH, some of them arent really fun and the stat balancing should be paid more effort.
-AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHY DID YOU REMOVE THE COMMON ABILITY TREE OF CHAPEL IN HOH1 AND THE AMAZING FOUNTAIN THAT COULD ALTER THE GAME SO MUCH IN HOH1, WHY????

I loved HoH1 and I got all the DLC for it, grind many hours into it but I have to say, HoH2 does not meet my expectations.

Some way of improving the game in my opinion:
-Add back the old chapel and fountain (Plz)
-Add banish/reroll/lock/ for the ability orb (Cause I dont really want to see useless upgrades (yes the combo skills))
-Add more content to the item system, maybe give some items class-specific attribute (e.g. X-shaped firewall, bounceable electro ball)
-Just copy some classes from hoh1, all of them are really well-designed already (with 7 skills)
-Add more trinkets, higher rarity of them (Just copy from hoh1)

That's about it for now, I can see the devs are giving an update every two days and I hope this gets to them, really look forward to see what this game could be.

~DON'T JOIN ONLINE GAMES~

I'd been having a great time just chilling and learning a few classes up to level 10, using the opportunity to grind up the resources needed to upgrade the town.

I really enjoy the way the small things in town change as you upgrade different key buildings. Houses and the town square and stuff, it's a really nice touch.

Today I clicked around the Multiplayer menu for the first time, tried to guess and join someone at a similar level. I spawned into their run and seemed to.. take half of my town with me? All of the NPC's were still there despite being in Crypt 2 and I was stuck inside terrain, the host walked past me a couple of times, probably wondering why I wasn't obeying the terrain on their screen.

Hit leave session, went back to my own world, and my town progress has been absolutely nuked. Hundreds of Wood/Stone and other resources invested just, gone. And my in-game Achievements were also wiped to the point all of my characters show Negative points allocated.

I can only assume my game SOMEHOW copied over the hosts town progress, because there are a few scattered town upgrades. And I don't have any way of rolling it back that I can find.

I'm scared I'll grind it all back up and it'll just happen again. I can't recommend the game while progress destroying bugs like this can just happen without even knowing how/how to prevent. I'll update in the future I guess.

Heroes of Hammerwatch II: Because nothing says teamwork like stealing your friend's health apple!

Gameplay

Heroes of Hammerwatch II takes everything you loved from the first game and adds more chaos, challenges, and, of course, loot. The gameplay sticks to its roguelike roots, meaning you’ll die a lot and I mean a lot. But each death feels like a lesson. The town-building mechanics, letting you invest your hard-earned gold into permanent upgrades. You’re buying better weapons and gear to survive longer next time. Co-op mode shines as usual; nothing bonds friends like screaming, “Heal me!” during a boss fight. This game is a good relationship test. If it can survive a few playthroughs of Heroes of Hammerwatch II, you are set.

The gameplay of Heroes of Hammerwatch II is where the magic (and madness) happens. At its core, it’s a top-down roguelike dungeon crawler, but the sheer depth and variety make it stand out in a crowded genre. You start with a simple hero, minimal gear. Each dungeon run feels like a unique journey, with procedurally generated levels. No two runs are alike, whether it’s a horde of skeletons, a devious trap, or that one boss who seems to really have it out for you.

Combat is fast-paced and highly strategic. Each character class plays differently, and mastering their abilities is both a challenge and a joy. The Paladin is your tanky protector, the Ranger is your sneaky long-range sniper, and the Sorcerer? Well, let’s just say you’ll be chucking fireballs like it’s nobody’s business. Experimenting with classes and finding the one that matches your style is half the fun, and you can always switch characters when you are in town.

One of the most exciting mechanics is the persistent town-building system. The gold and resources you collect can be invested in upgrading your town, unlocking new shops, and improving your hero. It adds a layer of progression that makes every run feel meaningful, even if you die in the first room. This mechanic creates a loop that keeps you hooked: run the dungeon, die, upgrade your town, get stronger, and then dive back in, it might not appeal to everyone, because it can become a bit grindy and repetetive.

The cooperative multiplayer mode is amazing. Up to four players can team up, and the chaos is as entertaining as it is challenging. You’ll laugh, scream, and maybe throw a few insults as you navigate traps and take down enemies together. Be warned, though: some items you can pick up, like health apples or mana spheres, are not shared. Nothing ruines a good friendship like watching your friend grab the health potion you desperately needed.

That said, the difficulty spikes are steep. You’ll go from “I’m untouchable” to “Who put this many enemies in one room?!” in seconds. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, the game will gleefully remind you that you’re still mortal. But for players who love a challenge, this is part of the appeal. Victory feels earned, not handed to you on a silver platter.

The sheer variety of enemies, traps, and level designs ensures the gameplay stays fresh even after hours of play at least for me. One moment you’re battling an army of skeletons, and the next, you’re dodging fireballs from a trap-laden hallway while trying not to fall into a pit. The game keeps you engaged, demanding quick reflexes, strategic thinking, and a willingness to embrace chaos.

Classes

Starting Classes:

• Warrior: A resilient melee fighter known for chaining kills.
  
• Paladin: A defense-oriented combatant with healing capabilities and high burst damage.
  
• Ranger: An agile archer excelling in swift and powerful bow attacks.
  
• Wizard: A balanced magic user proficient in both offensive and defensive spells.

Unlockable Classes:

• Rogue: A melee damage dealer with high attack speed and effective area-of-effect abilities.
  
• Warlock: A caster specializing in close-range combat with physical damage spells.
  
[*] Sorcerer: An elementalist who sacrifices defense for enhanced offensive power.

To unlock the Rogue, Warlock, and Sorcerer classes, players must encounter specific NPCs during their adventures:
Rogue: Found in the Dark Caves.
Warlock: Located within the Temple.
Sorcerer: Discovered in the Dark Citadel.


Each class offers three specializations upon reaching level 10, introducing new abilities and passive skills, allowing for further customization of playstyles.

Graphics

The graphics in Heroes of Hammerwatch II use colorful, retro-style pixel art that feels both classic and modern. The environments are detailed and varied, from bright forests to dark caves and castles.

Characters and enemies are well-designed, with smooth animations. Spells and attacks have flashy effects like explosions and glowing lights.

The game also uses lighting and shadows to create a moody atmosphere, especially in dark dungeons. Overall, it’s a charming and polished look that fans of pixel-art games will enjoy.

Final Conclusion

Heroes of Hammerwatch II is a love letter to fans of roguelikes and dungeon crawlers. It’s punishing yet rewarding, chaotic but strategic, and above all, addictive as hell. Sure, the storyline won’t win any awards, and the difficulty might make you question your life choices, but the thrill of progression and teamwork (or yelling at your friends when they steal your healing apple) is worth it. This game involves a lot of grinding and dying, so if you’re not a fan of those mechanics, it might not be the right fit for you.

If however you’re into games that make you laugh, cry, and occasionally rage-quit before coming back for “just one more run,” this might be for you. Just be prepared to spend countless hours crawling through dungeons—and probably questioning why you ever thought upgrading your armor could stop that many skeletons.

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This game has me torn. As a standalone game it is just fine. If you’ve not played Heroes of Hammerwatch 1, you will likely just enjoy the game. Those who have played the previous game though, will find themselves wanting more out of a sequel.

Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 feels like it is reusing 85% of Heroes of Hammerwatch 1. So many of the same items, enemies, and such similar graphics can lead one to feel this way. I get using the same engine, or a somewhat updated version for the next game, but the amount of re-use in this sequel is a bit annoying..

From what I can tell after getting to Newgame+4 so far, the differences between this game and HOH1 are the following:
*Dashing is a thing now.
*Spell Damage is now split across four elements - fire, ice, lightning, poison.
*Stone is now split into a few different resources.
*Almost every relic is copied over from HOH1, just named something else, or split into four due to the elemental types. New relics that don’t share an effect from HOH1 revolve around the Dash mechanic.
--130 relics in the base game of HOH1, 98 in HOH2, 21 of which I would consider “new”.
*Same classes as HOH1, minus the Priest and WitchHunter. Warrior ~ Gladiator, Thief ~ Rogue
*SubClasses - At level 10 you choose 1 of 3 subclasses for a given class. This generally gives 1 passive and 1 active skill.
--There are 2 skill slots available,
--HOH1 has 7 skills per class, One being your primary attack. HOH2 has 4 + 2 per subclass. Giving you a total of 6 to work with.
*Primary attack skills are no longer class-based, but weapon based. All weapon types have their own primary attack. Two-handed weapons have a secondary as well, One-handed weapons have just a primary attack. Off-handed weapons have only a secondary attack.
*Gear System.
--Green (Prefix), or Blue (Prefix + Suffix) items. Magnitude scales with level. Very basic diablo style gearing.
*Stat allocation

Other than that, most everything else is about the same as HOH1. I wish there were unique pieces of gear, or legendary rarity relics. I feel like I have seen all there is to see within my first ten runs. There are fewer items than the previous game, fewer skill slots, fewer options in food/drink, fewer options on run alterations, just less all around. I still have visibility issues, can’t differentiate half of the objects from their surrounding floor patterns, and still have to play with the minimap 100% of the time since I can’t see chests or pickups. There are also no puzzles in this game. All the chests are either just sitting there, or have a short trap gauntlet. There are also no keys needed, they are all already unlocked.

End-game scaling is very much broken at the moment. If you don’t put 100% of your stats into your primary stat, you will not be able to use new gear at a certain point. XP and Gold scaling doesn’t ramp up nearly enough with further NG+ levels. Enemy health, player resistance nerfs, all scale dramatically, while XP barely goes up and seemingly linearly. At NG+4, I have to kite enemies in the first zone for huge lengths of time, just to get like 80-100xp per kill.

All in all, “Less” is the key word for this sequel. Less complexity, less depth, less content, less mechanics, less engagement, less variety.

Very fun game to play with friends, and quite enjoyable alone as well^^
I freaking love how much and love and detail has gone into the presentation, especially foliage and town progression as you get upgrades. Progression in general is done very nicely, with a lot of shared progress between characters (achievements and levels give small buffs to all characters, town upgrades are shared) but you also have enough progression tied to each character that you have a nice power progression for each of them.
Devs have been wonderful about quickly patching bugs and issues, which is always appreciated!
To me, playing this feels nostalgic without feeling dated.

Incredible game. The fun factor really ramps up once you hit level 10 and unlock specializations. Before that it feels a bit too simplistic, which could easily be fixed by giving each class 2-3 more spells to choose from in the early game. I imagine most people wouldn't stick around for the time it takes to reach level 10 and they might miss out on a great experience.

Don't let the "roguelike" tag discourage you from buying if you typically dislike them. There is a huge amount of progression. You even keep your gear upon death, which is completely unheard of for typical roguelikes.

What a beautiful sequel, ive played every hammerwatch game to date and Heroes of Hammerwatch is one of my favorite games of all time. This sequel does almost everything better and im only 10 hours in. To keep things balanced i feel i should write one negative, and i do have one complaint. the Guild menu when you press "G" showing titles n achievements n stuff...its so ugly in this game compared to the first game. pls fix, love your game and i love you

Please change out the E key (the default accept key and start key everywhere else) from being the default to delete characters on the switch character screen as that just lost me my main character and that really hurt as I had put many hours into that character and lost all of the gear and upgrades. :(

I love the game but that wasn't a fun experience...

Heroes of Hammerwatch II is a generational leap from Heroes of Hammerwatch, the roguelite action RPG that accompanied the more traditional ARPG format Hammerwatch. Taking the best features of HoH and adding smart improvements makes this an easy recommendation, and while I would easily recommend both games I'll focus on what's new here.

The equipment system offers some flexibility in weaponry and builds, letting you experiment with a selection (though not an incredibly robust one) of different weapon and armor types. Try playing a rogue wearing light armor with a wand, or a wizard with a sword and shield and heavy armor, or a warrior with a bow and medium armor- while it might not be optimal, the flexibility is neat. Weapons and armor can be a good way to build up across multiple runs, giving bonuses to an array of stats and sometimes even special effects that can open up opportunities for a specific playstyle. It's not so overpowering that it feels like you're hitting a win button, but it is significant enough to really feel like progression, while not being so convoluted or deep that it becomes unapproachable without a theorycrafting guide. Later in the game, upgrading item levels and enchanting gear to change effects or increase rarity can be useful as well, though not required to do well.

Redone classes with additional customization offers more complexity to the gameplay loop. HoH had classes that had one attack, three skills, and two passives. HoH2 has similar, with weapons that have either one or two attacks depending on how many hands they occupy (both of which count as weapon skills, benefiting from your weapon power- including some very powerful staff attacks for casters), classes which have two active and two passive skills, and then on top of that a choice from three class specializations (unlocked at level 10) for each class that add two additional skills, one active and one passive that can transform your playstyle signficantly. Additionally, each run gives the chance to unlock temporary but transformative skill upgrades that allow you to leverage a class or specialization's playstyle in a particular way- regain health when using your melee attacks as Warlock to become a powerful caster tank, or become a demolitionist rogue who can drop grenades when you dodge away from enemies. These can even be used to transform a class's playstyle, like turning sorcerer's lightning crowd control shotgun style attack "Discharge" into a more precise ice cone that can easily destroy bosses at the expense of AoE capability.

Trinkets have been reexamined and a lot of them now either scale better into the later game (including the highly repeatable NG+ cycle) or are generally more valuable to begin with. Many of the "filler" trinkets in HoH that became annoying and could ruin runs because of their comparatively low value are gone, while most classics returned. Adjustments made to some trinkets seem to be balanced well in my experience. While I've sometimes been disappointed to get certain trinkets because of what a specific run needed, there aren't many I find myself disliking entirely and I am very strongly opinionated about trinkets.

Additionally, the graphics have been made much more granular, with a smaller pixel size than the original HoH. While there are a few graphical bugs at this time like flickering on specific floor textures or the occasional mistake with an errant tile or detail, there is some beautiful pixel art and the game looks spectacular. Importantly, it's also much more readable and easy to understand in busy situations, which is great when a bunch of particle effects are flying about.

If you enjoyed the original game, I can easily recommend this one. And, if you didn't play the first, I'd recommend this to you too if the combination of top down action RPGs and robust meta progression appeals to you, as I really haven't played anything quite like HoH/HoH2 in the action RPG scene.

As of the time of this review, I recommend against playing the demo; you should instead try the full game out and refund it if it's not your thing. The demo is a much older version of the game with lacking features and various bugs. Saves do not carry over from the demo.

Otherwise, this is a solid action rpg with impactful abilities and a slow-to-start progression. I recommend giving it a go.

This game is extremely grindy. And this is both a good and bad thing.
Good thing is you grind to improve your town, unlock resources, unlock more upgrades, unlock more classes, get stronger, keep pushing. It gives you a sense of progression as you go, and if you like diablo-like gameplay, this game is a gem.
Bad thing is they try to make it as grindy as possible. You lose some % of collected resources when you die. And they make sure you will die. Because you can only improve your character back in town. Even if you found some good gear during your run, you wouldn't have enough stats to put them on. So you will go to a map and suddenly get overwhelmed.
Another thing is that you have your typical progression like pay money to increase armor, potion slots, attack power, attack speed, etc. These are per characters, the cost is also quite high so one run might only fund one or two upgrades. And since they are not shared you would have to do the same for each of your characters. The game also encourage you to make more characters because each character will bring passive buffs according to their level.
If you enjoy this kind of gameplay this game is a god send. For me I am actually in the middle, I like a certain degree of grind but this game is a bit too demanding for me.

Finally, it seems this game has some performance issue on steam deck. After around one hour of play, the game will take forever to transition to the next stage or back to town. Need a restart to get things in order.

I'm really enjoying my time with this game. Nothing revolutionary here but it has became my morning cup of coffee make a Steam Deck run, previously held by Halls of Torment. If they could make the textbox size adjustable so I can see and not touch my nose to the Steam Deck, and implement Cloud Saves that would be amazing. I'll be playing this one for a while. Great job team!

This game is awesome. I can't wait for some dumb billionaire to hire me to play it for him so he can claim to be good at it. It's been years since a solid grind has been so fun and rewarding.

after trying the demo and being impressed by how good the game feels and looks i immediately bought it for myself and a friend. the first game never managed to keep my attention but this one has me hooked even over PoE2. combat is very smooth and despite being inherently hectic, especially in melee, it never feels overwhelming to a point where you cant tell whats going on on the screen.

i also really enjoy the mix of different character progression systems combined with your skill progression as a player which feels very rewarding. you get lots of small bonuses from different sources and theres a ton of stuff to upgrade and grind for. the replayability is quite high as the classes all play differently from each other and i love that you can equip whichever weapon type you want with any class as long as you meet the stat requirements for it. just as an example, theres a longbow that needs strength and a shortbow that needs dex, you can play a ranger with high strength and wear heavy armor or high dex and trade survivability for stronger crits. you can also just grab a longbow as a warrior or paladin without having to change your build, or even just keep it in your inventory as a backup for boss fights that are difficult as melee, or whip out a shield any time to get past nasty arrow traps easily. you also get a slight buff for all of your characters for each level of any class you play, for example a slight amount of armor for each level of paladin, as well as getting attribute and skill points for all characters for achievements, so the more you play the bigger your headstart is going to be when trying out a new class.

once you defeat bosses you can also skip their whole game section while getting at least a decent amount of trinkets and upgrades all at once which is really nice and reduces repetitiveness.
the pixel art is beautiful and both the music and sound design fit the game very well.

if you like rogue-lites and ARPGs this is a must try and fortunately theres a free demo, just be aware that your progress there doesnt carry over to the actual game. highly recommended.

Fun game until you reach ng+.

NG+ introduces a curse mechanic in which every cultist it seems can proc a permanent stack of curse that reduces your armor and resistances. By the time I got through the crypts and almost beating the boss, i had about 80 stacks of curse on my paladin reducing almost all of my armor and putting my elemental resistances around -100.

Nobody bothered to play test the ng+ because it pretty much makes melee builds unplayable.

Great game.

Edit : Load times fixed in patch. Things seem to be optimized better. Weird sometimes on Deck this
issue revisits.

These guys have a gem if they keep adding to it. Keep expanding the world adding content and classes. Maybe even add more towns. I've just scratched the surface. Looks like it will take some time to 100% it.

To the designers you should make an endless mystery dungeon with some solid RNG drops with a way to escape with your goods. Lufia 2 secret cave style. That alone would make it a cult classic.

Add Steam Cloud saves I don't want to start over on PC and Steam Deck.

This is the sequel that the original needed. You can really tell the devs have put a lot of love and attention in this iteration. Progression feels really good, every run almost always equates to getting further ahead than last time and the spaced introduction of new mechanics just feels right.
Don't listen to the negative reviews, most of them are written by kids who can't read and ragequit after 20 minutes or just trolls. This is a really good game.

arpg roguelite.... two best genres packed into one. pretty good so far & it runs flawless on the steam deck.

The game seems pretty good and I'll love to give it another chance someday, but for now I'm having to give it a "no" for an accessibility issue.

The text is very painful to read for me, and I'm the type of player that enjoys reading everything and comparing options for items and heroes and such, so the game became "literally unplayable" for me very quickly as it really strained my eyes.

A lot of games with similar aesthetics tend to have options to swap the typeface for a more readable one, I hope the developers can implement it (or that it can be changed by modding, at least).

This is a fantastic successor to the first game. The quality-of-life changes, such as finding mercenaries to fight with you for the level and persistent equipment upgrades are great! It's also added a storage chest so you can give items to your other characters. Absolutely stoked to play more.

Amazing sequel to the OG HoH. If there was only ONE SINGLE THING I would change its the lack of steam cloud save support. I'd love to play this on the Steam Deck and computer without making a new character. As of right now your character is device specific. Hopefully this can be implemented soon.

This game is really good.

Why? It's a proper action rogue lite, that has even better graphics and gameplay than the original. You don't need much of a strategy but it pays off to play tactically. Music, graphics and interactions grow quickly on you.

The game systems are really well designed and implemented:

- Super easy to join public online games, create a lobby with just friends, or a hybrid thereof.
- Persistence model, where you're starting from your (or the host's) little town, that can be upgraded.
- You can buy equipment and other upgrades there that are also persistent, which feels well balanced and fulfilling.
- Then there's trinkets which are more powerful than equipment, but are only earned during a run and valid for as long as your party stays alive. This makes every game unique and keeps you on your toes.
- Deaths: it's super easy to revive, and quite hard to stay alive, however there's a penalty that stays until the end of your run that your party will probably have to take very seriously.

Town building, loot, classes and killing equals tons of fun, even better with friends, if i had any....

Been waiting for so long for a sequel to HoH and oh man did Crackshell knock it out of the park with this one. I know it’s extremely early with my current playtime but I couldn’t help but pause the game to describe how great this game feels and looks! The current character I’m playing (The Paladin) has really good set abilities to start with, if anything the Paladin start in this game is way better than the first. The gameplay is smooth and if I’m being very honest, the difficulty from the first game is still very much there. I’ve died once so far but I leveled quite a bit from my first actual run and let me tell you, you are going to feel the difference with every stat and ability you put onto your character. This time around you’re allowed to put stat points freely. creating any type of build you want for your character(s). So for example I can make my Paladin a mage like character if I just spec into focus (mana+mana regen) and intelligence (spell crit chance+spell crit dmg), making it where I can just cast my heal for my allies and I as well as smiting monsters with my blessed strike. I may update this review later when I put more time but as of right now this game is sitting at a 9/10. Haven’t had this much fun in a game like this in a while.