Malignant Survivors Review Summary

Enjoyable loot grinding and a fun, unique game with great value, but poor balance, thin content, and stingy drop rates hold it back.

Enjoyable loot grinding: A significant portion of feedback focuses on the fun of loot hunting and grinding for powerful equipment. Players enjoy the satisfying endgame loop of seeking better items and becoming overpowered.

Fun and unique game: Many reviews describe the game as nice, interesting, and unique, highlighting its blend of looter and survivor genres. Players find the gameplay enjoyable and the concept creative.

Good value for price: Players frequently mention the game is worth its price, with several noting it is cheap or low-cost. The combination of low price and enjoyable gameplay makes it a good value purchase.

Overpowered builds possible: Players enjoy the ability to become extremely powerful, with unlimited power-ups and stacking equipment. This allows for dominating even the highest difficulties with the right build.

Deep itemization system: Players praise the deep equipment system, noting over 800 unique items and 30+ random modifiers. This depth allows for high build customization and specialized characters.

Game balance is poor: Character balance and overall game balance are criticized, with issues becoming more pronounced at higher difficulties and during the early service period. The difficulty curve is poorly designed, and Nightmare difficulty is vastly harder than Hard.

Game lacks content and progression: The game is criticized for having limited content, only one map, and no meta progression. Gold becomes useless after unlocking characters and equipment slots, and there is no meaningful long-term progression.

Loot drop rates are poor: Good loot rarely drops, and many drops are useless, making it hard to obtain quality items. Higher difficulties do not offer better drops, and the drop system feels confusing and unrewarding.

Skill cooldowns are too long: Players consistently report that skill cooldowns are excessively long, with basic skills taking up to 12 seconds and many abilities ranging from 10 to 30 seconds. This leads to a tedious early game where most time is spent waiting for cooldowns.

Movement speed is too slow: Players find the movement speed very slow, which makes the game feel sluggish and contributes to enemies catching up too easily. This is especially problematic in the early game.

ARPG with roguelike elements: The game blends action RPG mechanics with roguelike and survival elements, creating a hybrid genre experience. This combination is a notable aspect of the game's design.

Multiple difficulty levels exist: The game features a range of difficulty settings, including Nightmare, Hell, and Torment tiers. These difficulties likely affect enemy strength and loot quality.

Gold unlocks characters and slots: Gold serves as the primary currency for unlocking characters and equipment slots. This progression system is frequently mentioned and is a key part of the game's meta.

Loot hunting is core: Players consistently describe the game as a looter game where hunting for equipment is the central activity. This is a defining mechanic that shapes the overall experience.

Gold and items from runs: Players earn gold and collect items during runs, which can be used to improve future runs. This creates a loop of farming and upgrading.

Effects cause performance drops: Heavy skill effects, minions, and projectiles lead to low FPS, especially in late game or Torment farming. Players also note that effects cannot be turned off, worsening the issue.

Performance varies by hardware: Some players report smooth performance on weak PCs and Steam Deck, while others experience lag on non-high-end machines. This indicates inconsistent optimization across different hardware configurations.

Infinite loading after updates: Multiple players report getting stuck on endless loading screens after patches or updates. This issue appears repeatedly and disrupts gameplay significantly.

Crashes on certain difficulties: The game crashes, especially on Torment difficulty or in the final stage, even on newer medium-performance machines. This suggests stability issues under specific conditions.

High resource usage: Players report extremely high memory and CPU usage, and the game may not use the graphics card properly. This contributes to poor overall optimization.

Good value at low price: Several reviewers note that the game is worth its low price, especially when on sale. They consider it a good deal for the cost.

Loot grinding fans recommended: Multiple reviewers recommend the game to players who enjoy loot grinding and looter mechanics. The game is praised for its endgame grinding and loot-driven action.

Not recommended due to flaws: Several reviewers do not recommend the game due to numerous flaws, frustration, and lack of progress or fun. Some suggest avoiding it even on discount.

Action RPG and roguelike appeal: The game is recommended for fans of action RPGs and roguelikes who can tolerate some flaws. It offers deep customization and dynamic combat.

Not for Vampire Survivors fans: One reviewer explicitly advises against the game for fans of Vampire Survivors, suggesting it may not meet their expectations.

Community fair range: $2.00 - $4.00.

Session length: 0.1h.

Endgame: 15.0h.

The game is enjoyable early on, but after the tutorial, difficulty spikes and later repetitive grind and lack of meta progression diminish the fun.

Friction: Tutorial stage too hard after prologue; Lack of auto-attack; Paying gold to pick up items; Uneven difficulty spikes.

Unlock drivers: Easy difficulty added in update.

Treasure Hunter: Farms high difficulties, optimizes gear, and uses summons and skills to clear hordes. Motivation: The thrill of finding rare loot and building powerful characters. Stance: buy.

Genre Veteran Critic: Plays many similar games and expects depth; likely tries to find meta progression and mechanics. Motivation: Desire for a polished, feature-complete game with meta progression and varied content. Stance: no buy.

Build Optimizer: Plans gear slots, prioritizes movement speed, recommends heroes, and looks for skill and magic find gear. Motivation: Theorycrafting and optimizing builds to push higher difficulties. Stance: buy.

Steam Deck: The game exhibits significant stability and performance issues on Steam Deck, including crashes, frame drops, and failure to utilize the GPU, requiring workarounds like disabling cloud saves. While some users enjoy it, the technical barriers are substantial.

Compared to Vampire Survivors and Diablo: Reviewers frequently compare the game to Vampire Survivors and Diablo, noting similarities in atmosphere, gameplay, and loot systems. This helps set expectations for the game's style and mechanics.

Game is cheap and worth buying: Multiple reviewers highlight the game's low price, especially on discount, and consider it good value for money. The affordability is a key positive factor in their recommendations.

Developer actively updates game: The developer is praised for releasing updates, bug fixes, and new content. However, some reviewers note that the developer has shifted focus to a sequel, leaving the current game in a poor state.

Loading screen issues on Steam Deck: Some players experience a loading screen loop on Steam Deck, with a workaround involving disabling Steam Cloud sync and deleting saved settings. This issue has not been addressed by the developer.

Difficulty and balance issues: Reviewers criticize the developer's difficulty design, noting that the highest difficulty is Torment 2 and requesting a higher Torment 5. There are also requests for character balance and clearer rarity colors.