PLATFORM: PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 28TH
Well-received on its initial PC release in September 2024, Halls of Torment‘s take on the survivors-like genre (there must be a better word for it than that, surely?) is heading to consoles along with a major free update and a hefty bit of paid DLC.
Halls of Torment follows the survivors formula closely – your main aim is to survive until the end of a 30 minute timer while being swarmed by thousands of enemies. Your chosen character (of which HoT offers eleven in the base game) aims and attacks automatically (although there’s an option to switch to manual controls if you want), so really your only job is to move around and avoid getting hurt. Enemies drop gems which fill your experience meter at a fairly brisk pace, and each time you level up during a run you’re offered a choice of four randomly-selected traits that can increase your attack, defense, movement speed and a host of other stats. You’ll also find ability tomes that bestow your chosen character with additional attacks, and elsewhere you might find yourself being offered a choice of three pieces of equipment that can give you all kinds of additional perks from stat boosts to new attacks, all combining together to make your character stronger and give you a better chance of surviving to the end of the run.
A quest menu gives you hundreds objectives to aim for, like defeating a certain amount of enemies, beating bosses or surviving without taking defensive perks, all rewarding you with either gold, new characters, or new traits, items and upgrades that can then appear in future runs. Each of the game’s “Halls” (levels) has a handful of secrets to discover too, along with a few extra upgrades that prove to be incredibly useful. The Wellkeeper, when rescued, lives in your main hub and allows you to store equipment that can be equipped before you even start a run, giving you a head-start on gaining the power you’re likely to need, while the Cupbearer can make potions that affect the choices you’re given when levelling up, helping you to focus only on the abilities that you really want.
There’s plenty to keep you going, but it can take a while to really start making a dent in the insane amount of quests, and your early runs might feel a little underwhelming as the path towards unlocking the better items – and therefore making yourself feel truly powerful – can be a bit of a grind. If you enjoy this type of game, though, grinding is no problem at all! Once you do start making progress, you’ll be able to put together a huge arsenal of rapid-fire attacks that, with a bit of skill and luck on your side, will help you reach the final boss.
Alongside the console release, players on all platforms will receive a free update that includes a new character, manual level-ups, new music tracks and a handful of new quests and abilities. There’s also a hefty piece of paid DLC, The Boglands, which introduces a further two new characters, a new swamp-themed level, and a ton of new quests, abilities, traits and gear along with a handful of artifacts that allow you to customise your runs with stage modifiers, adding further chaos to an already-hectic game. One of the top-tier “survivors-likes” (it really doesn’t sound right at all, does it?) around, Halls of Torment has more than enough addictive content to keep you going for hours.
