Deathless is a survivor roguelite game similar to Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment where you can actually play with up to four players! Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Deathless Review Overview
What is Deathless?
Deathless is the first online co-op game in the survival roguelite genre, similar to games like Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment. Work with your allies to brave the numerous hordes that are after you at every second and every turn. With unique characters and tons of different abilities to choose from, the game offers a lot of variety for builds and the added bonus of being able to play with your friends!
Deathless features:
⚫︎ Online co-op roguelite survival with Vampire Survivors-esque gameplay
⚫︎ Different playable characters with unique stats
⚫︎ Objective-based maps that change up the gameplay
⚫︎ Unlockable characters and permanent upgrades by using in-game currency
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Deathless's gameplay and story.
 Deathless |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Steam |
Deathless Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Online Co-op Objective Based Maps Shorter Games |
Luck Plays a Huge Part Progression is Expensive No Master List for Weapon Evolutions Multiplayer Issues |
Deathless Overall - 60/100
Deathless is a decent survival roguelite with a foundation clearly inspired by the games that came before it. It does well to differentiate itself from the pack in several aspects like actual online co-op, objective-based maps, and shorter games. However, with luck being a huge part of your progression and ability to win runs, the game ends up being repetitive until you get that one lucky run to give you that sweet feeling of victory.
Deathless Story - 6/10
It follows the trope of Turon’s pursuit of limitless power turning into a journey of revenge. There is an opening cinematic explaining the premise of the game, but it doesn’t really tell the story of the other characters other than Turon. Which makes everything feel like there are plot holes that seemingly won’t be addressed until development is further down the line. Though, to their credit, the game having a story already makes it unique among the other games in the same genre.
Deathless Gameplay - 7/10
If you’re familiar with Vampire Survivors, then you’ll feel right at home. With the game following the same core gameplay, you can expect a lot of running around to avoid enemy mobs and adjusting your build depending on the options that you get when levelling up. There are a couple of positives and negatives that the game has, and the latter can easily be adjusted through patches to address them. With the game being heavily influenced by the previously mentioned Vampire Survivors, your enjoyment will definitely be subjective if you enjoy the genre or not.
Deathless Visuals - 6/10
The game sort of looks like an older version of World of Warcraft, and it does look decent. I appreciate the in-game cutscenes as they show the detail that the characters have during these scenes, but these are very limited in number. My only gripes with the game are the stiff animations and some colors being off-putting due to the contrast of each character on screen. It’s not bad, but it’s not amazing either—nothing remarkable to write home about.
Deathless Audio - 5/10
Sadly, the game’s audio design isn’t great either. It does its job of being there, but I actually turned the music off after an hour of gameplay, and it doesn’t really do the game any favors. I was surprised to hear voice acting from readying up, but these aren’t well done as well.
Deathless Value for Money - 6/10
For $9.99, the game does have a decent amount of content to play with both solo and with a full squad. The main issue is the game's replayability outside of online co-op, since progression is sluggish just based on the rewards that they give you after every run.
Deathless Review: Slightly Different Survivors
Initially, I had reservations about this game since it’s another game that was directly inspired by the sudden success of Vampire Survivors. I did play the base game of Vampire Survivors in its entirety, and so I have a bit of experience when it comes to this genre. Deathless is surprisingly decent, but it definitely doesn’t look the part when you don’t get to play the game. It directly takes the loop of the aforementioned game and adds its own twist so that it differentiates itself from the pack. However, are those twists enough to avoid being called a clone in the genre?
In terms of visuals, it’s pretty decent. It’s nothing too flashy, and if anything, it does have a World of Warcraft-like look to it. There’s not much to say about the graphics other than that the playable characters look better than the rest of the game’s models. In my opinion, they might need to tone down the contrast as the colors could be eye-straining after a few hours of gameplay.
As for audio, it’s not as good as I would have liked. The music is so repetitive and uninteresting that I muted the game after the first hour of gameplay. The game has voice acting, but they’re not spectacular as well; maybe a little funny even.
The gameplay is directly lifted from Vampire Survivors, down to how you level up and strengthen your weapons. It didn’t take long for me to notice some problems that I encountered during gameplay. For instance, since the first map has a hard limit of fifteen minutes, you only have a very limited amount of time to earn enough XP to have a comfortable run. With these types of games, you need to be able to get a strong source of damage so that you can move around and progress more comfortably.
The game’s progression is sluggish, both in the actual game and the post-game runs. Getting gold to upgrade your permanent stats and unlock characters is very limited, and maybe this was intentional so that you’d be incentivized to keep playing; however, it may lead to players getting tired of the game easily. Mostly because the game’s upgrade system is luck-reliant due to how you find Treasure Chests.
To provide more context, Treasure Chests in Deathless function similarly to Vampire Survivors where they increase the level of weapons and abilities that you currently have when chosen by the in-game slot machine. This could mean that the same weapon or ability is chosen at the same time to give you more levels after a single chest. Now, with that being said, the best way for you to look for these chests is by destroying the objects littered throughout the field so that you could potentially get more levels than the normal level up.
The problem with this is that there are no enemies that grant you a guaranteed drop of these Treasure Chests, which means that killing the mini bosses isn’t worth it either. In one of my successful runs, I was able to find multiple Treasure Chests to comfortably run around and progress through the level. The stars have to align slightly perfectly just for you to have a great run, but these moments are few and far between.
Overall, the game is familiar to those who are already acquainted with other games in the genre. There are positives, like the game having actual objectives instead of just surviving through a time limit before completing a run. However, they might need to re-evaluate the in-game progression, both in-game and in the rewards that they give. As it stands, finishing a run is through sheer luck and putting in more time than a lot of people would like to put in.
Pros of Deathless
| Things Deathless Got Right |
|---|
|
Online Co-op Objective-Based Maps Shorter Games |
Online Co-op
The game will have an online co-op function so that you can enjoy surviving through the run as a full squad. This leads to the game having better replayability than most of the other clones in the genre already, and maybe even comedic moments among your friends as well.
Objective-Based Maps
I’m glad that the game isn’t simply a direct copy of Vampire Survivor’s win condition of surviving a set time limit. The second map having a different objective was definitely a good change of pace instead of just aiming and planning how to survive as long as possible. While the game is difficult in its own right, the idea that you need to do objectives already changes the way you’ll have to think about getting levels and actually finishing the map.
Shorter Games
With the objectives being less of a hard time limit for players, it actually leads to shorter games especially since the first level only has a hard time limit of fifteen minutes as opposed to Vampire Survivor’s thirty minutes. For the second map, I would like to estimate that you could get away with completing it before reaching the thirty-minute mark, but that would also mean that you were very lucky to begin with. Speaking of luck, let’s talk about the cons.
Cons of Deathless
| Things That Deathless Can Improve |
|---|
|
Luck Plays a Huge Part Progression is Expensive No Master List for Weapon Evolutions Multiplayer Issues |
Luck Plays a Huge Part
The biggest issue I have with the game is the luck factor for levelling up your abilities, since this could mean having a successful run or another defeat. It follows the same loop with Vampire Survivors where you have to be more aggressive early on to take advantage of the weak mobs and get a good amount of levels early. However, if you don’t get a good start, you’ll start to rely on looking for Treasure Chests to get more levels for your abilities.
This compounds another problem because the mini bosses don’t drop Treasure Chests similar to Vampire Survivors, which means that they’re tanky targets that’ll eat up your time without rewarding the player for beating them in the first place. If you take this aspect into account with the shorter time limit that you have with a map, then it quickly becomes a failed run if you don’t get a great start.
Progression is Expensive and Rewards are Not Enough
The in-game currency is tied to a random drop of destructible objects similar to Treasure Chests in the game. This means that the priority is to tank runs and look for as much gold as you can, so you can both upgrade your permanent stats and unlock characters as well. It doesn’t help that the gold requirement to unlock characters and upgrade your stats is steep while not being rewarded enough for every successful run.
I would also like to add that gaining XP through the crystals you pick up should probably be changed since the game actually swarms you quite easily and you’d want to move around more rather than stay in place and collect XP within a certain area.
No Master List for Weapon Evolutions
This is more of a nitpick as even Vampire Survivors did not have this feature until a few patches later. Other than the listed evolutions under the character, there are other weapon combinations that have no listed evolutions; I’m not sure whether the evolution isn’t there yet or if it is, and I’m not pairing the correct passive with it. Having clarity with the options that you can have and take will always benefit the player so that they could plan around the randomness that the game already has.
Multiplayer Issues
One of the biggest complaints in the game's multiplayer is that while the online co-op is better than the Vampire Survivors counterpart, the experience points being separated per player is a big miss. This would mean that each player would be fighting for kills to get more experience points and will lead to a lot of imbalance during their runs. Hopefully this mechanic get patched in the future, as this is a very big misstep by the devs since the experience is scarce especially if you're only relying on the starter weapons.
Is Deathless Worth It?
Hold Off Until The Next Updates, Then Consider With Friends
With the game in its current state, it can still give you some enjoyment, especially since you can play it with friends. However, I don’t think it has enough to keep players interested with the amount of content that it currently has. There’s potential with the foundation they’ve laid, but it will take a couple of updates and changes before my opinion on the game’s gameplay loop and progression becomes enjoyable. The price of $9.99 isn't necessarily expensive, but you could easily just enjoy Vampire Survivors for a smaller price and play using Remote Play instead.
| Platform | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
|||||
| $9.99 |
Deathless FAQ
When Will Deathless Be Out of Early Access?
The devs have said that the game will be fully released around mid 2025.
Game8 Reviews
You may also like...
Deathless Product Information
|
|
| Title | DEATHLESS |
|---|---|
| Release Date | July 29, 2024 |
| Developer | OneTwoPlay |
| Publisher | Bark Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Action, Adventure, Indie, Roguelite |
| Number of Players | Online Co-op Multiplayer |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Deathless Website |
