After Soulstone Survivors, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor and countless more, yet another highly acclaimed bullet heaven shooter lands on Xbox. And it’s a Game Pass day one release, no less! Let’s dive into these dark dungeons in this old school Diablo-inspired take on the viral genre. This is the XboxEra review for Halls of Torment, tested on Xbox Series X!
Because calling it Diablo Survivors would have pissed Blizzard lawyers off
The easiest way to describe Halls of Torment would be: Vampire Survivors with the original Diablo aesthetic. Of course, merely cloning two popular games wouldn’t have given German developer Chasing Carrots so much praise for this game. Since it’s launch in Early Access on Steam in May 2023, the game has expanded and evolved tremendously, turning a once promising title into one of the highlights of the entire genre. I played it plenty, back on PC, and I’m glad to do so on Xbox as well. But what makes Halls of Torment such a great game, and why does it risk becoming your next Game Pass time sink?
The first reason is immediately evident, even though it may not impact everyone the same way – nostalgia. As someone who has played the original Diablo back on PC in the 1990’s, I have fond memories of the game’s low resolution, yet tremendously atmospheric top-down dungeons. Despite the levels being pretty much open with little in terms of walls and obstacles, it somehow still retains the somewhat creepy and claustrophobic vibes. From selecting one of the available characters at a bonfire, to handling their loot, all the way down to the old school particle effects when using elemental damage. Even the actual gameplay area on screen is a 4:3 rectangle – like CRT monitors of old. What a sensational throwback, this is!
Demons at my feet
The second reason as to why Halls of Torment is such a brilliant bullet heaven shooter is… well, nailing the execution. As is usually the case for such games, attacks and aiming are automatic, though both of them can be turned to manual – resembling more classic horde-based rogue-lites at that point. Despite such automated processes, our multi-weapon builds feel really satisfying, because skills look good and feel rewarding and powerful. Awesome fire-based weapons, summons, exciting lightning bolts – it’s all so very Diablo-coded, and it feels great to play.
Dungeons feature all sort of additional things to look out for. Treasures, hidden events, people in distress to help, all the way down to the “usual” power-ups like magnets. The game always shows the direction of these things, giving players a sense of purpose as to what direction to go in, as opposed to just sticking around a same area. Moving around is also encouraged by the presence of barrels, destructible rocks and so forth, which often contain health, coins and more. And speaking of money…
The depth of these depths
While not packing a tremendously varied gameplay loop, nor the obscene customization and depth of something like Soulstone Survivors, Halls of Torment has a lot of cool mechanics between runs. There’s many classes to choose from, each with their skills and statistics. There’s an entire loot system, with players being able to send back, via a well, a handful of items per run for permanent usage. Indeed, as the player goes through the various stages, more and more allies join the cause, either as playable heroes or as helpers who sell us items, help us brew potions and so forth.
Money, predictably, comes into play with the game’s permanent upgrade system. As with most bullet heaven shooters, there’s an increasing amount of persisting boosts for all future runs – higher health, increased damage, larger pick-up range, revives and so forth. While the actual coins you collect come in quite slowly, even in later levels, there’s countless in-game achievements to aim for that can also give extra cash in the process. Variety never becomes too high, but there’s plenty of endgame grinds to aim for, if you feel inclined to sink big hours into this bullet heaven. There’s even various free updates coming out, and even some paid DLC, so this game should last you quite some time.
Trouble ahead!
If there is one thing Halls of Torment faulters at, is perhaps the pacing. Much like in Vampire Survivors, the levels see the players needing to stay alive for 30 minutes. Yet, with how wordy some of the upgrade selections are, the frequency of interruptions and whatnot, each run takes even longer. There are no shorter variants, no Hyper Mode, no game speed sliders like in Achilles: Survivor – nothing, really. Since the game never truly becomes much more demanding mechanically, you are looking at a lot of very similar runs that take quite a long time, with no shortcuts to help matters.
I tried using Quick Resume once, and the game crashed shortly after rejoining the match. These runs are long and, unless they patch things, you should do them in one sitting. Also, in a frustrating twist, shortly before completing this review my save has seemingly been wiped – sort of. I kept the coins I had, just over 1700, but I lost all the permanent upgrades, classes and new stages unlocked. If I had a dollar for every time a bullet heaven wiped my save shortly before launch, I’d have 2 dollars. In an odd coincidence, I had this almost exact same thing happen to me last month with Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel. To stay in theme with Halls of Torment‘s infernal themes, I’ll say: what the hell?
A lovely bullet heaven shooter with great vibes, but also a few issues
Are you done with Deep Rock Galactic Survivor‘s gargantuan 300 achievements yet? Have you managed to finish everything in the dangerously addictive BALL x PIT already? May I interest you in yet another Game Pass day one release that may eat up your free time – with even Play Anywhere support for, perhaps, even some ROG Xbox Ally action? Well, I got what you need!
Halls of Torment efficiently combines the highs of some of the best bullet heaven shooters out there, with immaculate Diablo-coded looks and sounds. Despite not being revolutionary, nor packing the outrageous depth of some of its rivals, Chasing Carrots‘ title is easily one of the most interesting and addictive titles in the genre. And, as a Game Pass release, you have very little reasons not to give this one a fair shot. Hopefully, some quality-of-life updates will fix its slow progression, the poor Quick Resume implementation, also making sure you won’t encounter the save-wiping bug that I had!
Halls of Torment
Played on
Xbox Series X, PC
PROS
- Immaculate Diablo vibes
- Great gameplay loop
- Excellent soundtrack
- Plenty of content
CONS
- Runs are quite long and slow
- Not vastly different from most bullet heaven titles
- A few troubling technical aspects, such as a save wipe bug and poor Quick Resume implementation
