Hordelord is a fun arena run'n'shoot FPS that gave me vibes of Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, modern Doom, maybe even a pinch of Painkiller, Serious Sam and old style Doom. Wrapped in roguelike gameplay loop it provides a short bursts of enjoyment for players that enjoy fast skill-based shooters spiced with build-making.

UNIQUE
You can execute an instantly fly from any location to a blue crystals scattered around the arena if you can see it. During the transport you will kill enemies in the trajectory from the starting point to the crystal. A new game dynamic of "lining enemies to make most kills with a single button press transport". Very fun!

QUIRK
Main melee weapon is a shovel and you can make a melee shovel build by choosing various perks to beef it up.

CORE
The core gameplay loop is well executed - preparation, initiation of a wave, run'n'shoot, reward selection (perk, weapon unlock).

SYSTEM
- Arenas are cleverly designed, tight, compact, but you can unlock various parts of the arena differently each time you play it.
- Roguelike variable perks inbetween waves of enemies provides a feeling and opportunity for strategy and "build making".
- Puzzles - arenas can be sort of a puzzles - different level design and number of respawnable ammunition influence the optimal strategy for survival. Low ammunition implies leaning on melee build or ammunition hoarding perks; high ammunition and a lot of height differences in the arena suggests a long range wepons and perk for stomping the ground with AOE dmg thanks to high jumps are good way to go.

MUSIC
Fitting to the overall aesthetic. Bit of djent and metal in a style of modern Doom.

PERSONAL NOTE
I think the game also sold me on the studio "main story game" called Gravelord. During first hours of Hordelord I thought - nice mechanics, I would imagine how a full single player campaign would look like and to my surprise … they do have exactly that kind of a game in development - already released in early access. If you buy Gravelord (single player campaign focused) in EA you actually get Hordelord (arena based) for free.

(Notice: I have 11 hours in the Hordelord Demo aswell)
I know two boomer shooters that have an absolutely amazing survival mode that others just dont live up to.

Those are Herald of Havoc's survival mode and this: Hordelord.
Hordelord, very importantly, has two modes that play differently and even gives you score differently to an extend. Hordemode has a set number of waves and enemies, meaning your goal is to squeeze out as much score from every single round as possible. Survival is not as big a priority as you have 3 lives. Performing these tasks that are shown in the "Tips and tricks" menu will lead to a greater score. Hordemode is also the only mode that lets you attempt to go for Flawless waves and Death Gambler waves. (Being at 40 hp or below always.) It also means that Hordemode encourages you to use some different tarrot cards than in the endless mode, as those may end up granting you options to grant score that are otherwise not accessible. (Burning enemies to death with the scourge card for instance.)

Endless is much more your traditional surival mode, but performing actions to grant score are still mandatory. This means that this game does not reward you that much for just surviving, but by performing style kills and constantly thinking about how to max out your score. That makes the game very very interresting, where as in Herald of Havoc its all about just surviving waves, but the drops have alot of RNG to them on HoH.

The game so far I think has EXTREMELY satisfying gameplay, FAIRLY interresting options for cards, and some work better for certain maps than others, which is very appealing. I absolutely love this game and its definetly absolutely top when it comes to survival modes in these kind of games. HOWEVER I do think the game has a little bit of a strange thing going on where staying on low life seems mandatory, because both in the Horde mode and Survial Mode, it grants you more points for always being on low life, and that means that at least in the endless mode, the third card tier has a card called Tough Hide, which reduces damage taken when on low life to an insane degree. This card is much much stronger than every single other card in the whole game, for surviving that is. It is to the point where you are more survivable on low life then when not on low life, and since you are forced into being on low life for score advantages, there is no reason to not use the perk in slot 4 that gives you more damage on low life, and slot 1 that gives you more movement speed on low life. This leaves only slot 2 for experimentation in my opinion, for the Endless mode that is. Im not saying that this low life thing is neccesarily a bad thing, but its very apparent that the game really tries to force you to go on low life.

Furthermore: You cant complete the first wave in Horde both Deathless and Flawless, as you need to stand still in the beginning to let the mobs damage you and reduce your hp from 100 to 40 or less. It would be better if you just spawned with 40 hp right away with the option to pick up 60 health. Now, here is probably my BIGGEST CRITISM so far in the Horde mode, that I really hope the developers will add an option to fix: Deliberately dodging health packs as they mess your wave completely. Here is the thing: If you pick up a health pack while you are at say... 35 health and ur trying to for a death gamble run, it will heal you to 55 health. That COMPLETELY RUINS your wave as you are not able to get death gambler anymore, and low life score on kills also go away. This means you haft to take damage from the mobs to reduce your life to 40 or lower again, WHICH ALSO RUINS YOUR FLAWLESS wave in case you have not taken a hit yet. This is such a big issue in my opinion, and the developers NEED to add an option in settings to block health packs from healing you above 40 hp. It is not fun to consider health packs as an even bigger threat than the actual enemies in the game!!!

With more hours and experience I maybe able to review cards further, but this "being on low life" gameplay seems to be signature gameplay of Hordelord already. It is still a very interresting game nevertheless. Perhaps the game could compensate with a bonus for being on full life (100hp) on kills or something. And a wave reward for never dropping below 100 health as well. Maybe a certain card that ONLY works when you are at 100 hp or higher in case you get overhealed from the few mega healths. That would be very nice. That would also give synergy to the card that give excess healing apply to armor. There is definetly some things that can be done here imo.

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