Hordes of Hunger Review Summary

Fun combat and satisfying, tight fights with varied weapons and an interesting crafting system, but repetitive levels and weak, grindy meta progression hold it back.

Fun and enjoyable gameplay: Players consistently describe the game as fun, enjoyable, and a cool idea. Many find it good enough to play and look forward to more.

Combat is satisfying and tight: The combat system receives high praise for being fast, smooth, and satisfying, with pleasant impact and bloody hacking. Players love the overall feel.

Excellent overall quality: The game is described as brilliant, magnificent, incredible, and great. It is considered well-made and solid overall.

Varied weapon types: The game features five weapon types: two-handed sword, two-handed hammer, spear, scythe, and combat gloves. Each affects playstyle differently.

Interesting weapon crafting system: The weapon crafting system is found interesting and enjoyable. It allows players to forge weapons with different qualities.

Repetitive gameplay and lack of variety: Feedback consistently mentions that gameplay is extremely repetitive, with monotonous enemies, missions, and environments. Many note a lack of breadth and variety, leading to boredom.

Meta progression weak and grindy: Meta progression is often described as unpleasant, unfriendly, and slow, with little sense of progress. Grinding for upgrades feels unrewarding and many players feel stuck.

Content is shallow and short: Many reviewers feel the game lacks content depth and can be finished quickly, with little replay value. The game is often described as feeling like an early access or demo version.

Combat controls and camera janky: Many reviewers report that combat controls are janky, making fights frustrating. The camera is also frequently criticized as janky, spinning, and not following the action well, leading to disorientation.

Skills and builds lack diversity: Many players note that skills are bland and there are few viable builds, leading to repetitive play. The weapon system is often seen as stat-only with no meaningful variety.

Randomized weapon crafting: Weapon crafting includes random stats, quality tiers, and affixes, allowing players to chase specific rolls. Crafting requires materials and three parts.

Horde survival elements: The game features horde survival gameplay with hack-and-slash combat, where waves of enemies swarm from multiple directions. This resembles survivors-like and Vampire Survivors-style games.

Parry and combat mechanics: Combat includes a parry system, along with dash, sidestep, jump attacks, and context parries. Players can also use light and heavy attacks, dodge, and active skills.

Roguelite genre confirmed: Players frequently describe the game as a roguelite, roguelike, or action roguelike. Several reviews emphasize the top-down perspective.

3D hack-and-slash roguelike: The game is described as a 3D action roguelike hack-and-slash with a third-person perspective, set in a dark fantasy world. This combines real-time combat with roguelike progression.

Performance issues with large hordes: Players report frame rate drops and chugging when many enemies are on screen. This affects gameplay fluidity during intense battles.

Steam Deck performance variable: Frame rate on Steam Deck runs about 25-30 consistently, and the game works somewhat okay but could use fixes and optimization. It is not unplayable but not ideal.

Game crashes with Unhandled Exception: A specific crash occurs with an Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000000000003f0. This indicates a potential memory access violation bug.

System crashes from memory overflow: Memory overflow issues lead to system crashes. This is a serious stability problem that can affect the entire system.

Overheating causes system crashes: GPU and case fans spin fast, leading to system crashes due to heat. This indicates potential thermal management issues.

Worth its full price: Many reviewers agree that the game is worth its full price, and some even say it's a no-brainer. The price-to-time ratio is considered excellent.

Wait for sale or discount: Some suggest waiting for a sale or discount, as the game may not be worth the full price in its current state. Others say it's worth it if cheap.

Not recommended due to bugs: Several reviewers cannot recommend the game because of bugs, bad design, and lack of testing. They advise against purchasing or recommend avoiding it.

Recommend overall: Several reviewers recommend the game overall, with some calling it a definite buy. It's seen as a solid 8/10.

Recommend to roguelike fans: Reviewers recommend the game to fans of roguelikes and the Diablo atmosphere. It offers a unique take on survivorlike games.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 10.0h.

Story completion: 5.0h.

Session length: 1.5h.

Endgame: 2.0h.

Players often report immediate fun from melee combat and an addictive gameplay loop, but enjoyment tends to fade after the first few hours as repetition, limited content, and lategame progression issues set in.

Friction: Frequent early deaths; Early difficulty spike; Clunky dodging, parrying, and positioning; Tutorial covers only basics; Grindy and tedious progression/unlocks; Weapon imbalance, such as spear feeling worse than sword.

Survivor-like Buildcrafter: Plays in 10-30 minute runs, drafts upgrades, and optimizes weapon and element synergies between meta-progression unlocks. Motivation: Experimenting with randomized upgrades and crafting synergistic builds across short roguelite runs. Stance: buy.

Hack-and-Slash Arena Combat Fan: Tests viable weapons, adapts to enemy debuffs and floor patterns, and scales from melee combos into powers during arena runs. Motivation: Mastering weapon-driven melee combat and enjoying the hybrid hack-and-slash power fantasy. Stance: buy.

Meta-Progression Grind Completionist: Repeatedly farms runs and hub upgrades, pursues 100% completion, and pushes max difficulty. Motivation: Unlocking permanent upgrades, maxing passives, and completing achievements across repeated runs. Stance: buy.

Compared to Vampire Survivors: Frequent comparisons are made to Vampire Survivors, particularly regarding random skill selection and enemy tankiness. This suggests the game is often evaluated in the context of the survivors-like genre.

Early access development state: Many reviewers note the game is currently in early access, with ongoing updates and potential for more content. This is a recurring theme across multiple clusters, indicating the game's developmental stage is a key consideration for players.

Future depends on developer: The game's future depends on the developer's further actions, with potential to become a good roguelike or fall short. Community communication and updates are seen as critical.

Short game length: The game is noted to be short, with completion times under 5 hours for the main story and around 8-12 hours with side quests. This is a point of contention as some feel it lacks content.

Developer reputation: The developers, Hyperstrange and Kwalee, are known for Blood West and Elderborn, which are highly recommended indie gems. This positive reputation may influence player expectations.