Death's Door

From the distinct, sprawling domains of your three primary marks, to the adorably avian way your crow tilts and juts their head around, the game never misses a moment to delight you with some new wonder, and just when you think it’s run out of surprises; whether it’s a new tune, a beautiful vignette, or a quiet moment of empathy, it’s always got something else tucked underneath its wing.

I honestly had a blast with Death's Door, with the only major problem I ran into being some save file problems. Admittedly, playing a pre-release version of the game could have had something to do with that. The game is not phenomenally long, sitting at around twelve or so hours, with the chance of it being even less if you have fewer issues with the somewhat unforgiving nature of the game. There’s also no difficulty scaler which may turn off some players who want a slightly less difficult playthrough. If you too like to roll on the darker side of life, or death if you will, give this game a chance!

Death’s Door crashes onto the scene stylistically with an amazingly detailed, interconnected world full to the brim with personality and secrets. The game introduces great characters that bring with them charisma and humanity as it lovingly juggles both the morbid and the beautiful sides of its narrative. With simply phenomenal sound design that lovingly accompanies and amplifies the visuals and atmosphere, Death’s Door presents one door absolutely worth knocking on.

This tremendously excellent Death's Door is a well-polished action/adventure hybrid that is worth your attention.

With Death's Door, Acid Nerve hits the mark once again. The British studio unveils here a magnificent epic which, admittedly, may lack originality in substance, but charms in its form. In addition to enjoying spectacular clashes, the action / adventure game takes you on a journey by revealing an inspired universe. All in nuances, the world of Death's Door is constantly highlighted by its varied artistic direction, its rhythmic sound-design and its characters torn between life and death. Sold at a low price, the title published by Devolver Digital is in our opinion the breath of fresh air not to be missed this summer.

Death's Door is a game where the journey counts more than the destination: a fine experience overall, despite some minor flaws here and there.

The setting is intriguing, but the story is bland. Open world promises exploration, but there is nothing to find. The combat has all the beats – but it just isn’t interesting. [Issue#254, p.68]

One of the best indie games out there, excellent gameplay, brutal story, replayability, one of the best-designed maps in history. I'm at a loss for words to describe the greatness of this game. It's one of my favorite indie games so far, and by far.

When I first booted up Death's Door, it felt like a giant door of difficulty was slamming shut right in my face, locking me out cold. What the heck was with that early-game wall? I’ve beaten Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and a handful of other soul-crushing games, yet this one had me questioning my life choices as a gamer. The biggest culprit? Healing was ridiculously inconvenient—like trying to find a decent parking spot during a apocalypse. I absolutely loved the game’s aesthetic though—it’s got that perfect moody, hand-drawn charm. The soundtrack? Straight-up awesome. I’d happily replay entire areas just to vibe with the music.I even tortured myself with the umbrella-only challenge for the whole game (yes, that actual achievement exists). It added an extra layer of “why am I doing this to myself?” on top of the already spicy difficulty. Some of the areas and bosses were genuinely cool and memorable too. If it wasn’t for the painfully limited healing system, this game would’ve been near-perfect for me. Sadly, that part is strictly for the birds. I won’t crow about it forever, but I definitely recommend Death’s Door to old-school Zelda fans and anyone who enjoys a solid challenge. Or, at the very least, just pop on the soundtrack and enjoy some fantastic tunes while you do literally anything else. Final score: 7/10. The frustration knocked it down a few points, but the game flows quickly, the exploration feels rewarding, and the style is top-notch. Worth playing—especially if you like your crows competent and your doors deadly.

Great atmosphere, music and art. The game isn't too difficult which isn't a necessity here to be entertaining. Negatives are the no map and having to kill yourself to fast travel.

i've said it before and i'll say it again: do not buy anything from devolver. they simply do not allow the devs to finish their games, they are all about showing off an interesting gameplay loop or graphical style but the games themselves always fall flat because they are not given the resources to be made with love and care. now, on to the review. it has potential, but the graphical style makes everything look the same and it's far too easy to get lost, far too difficult to keep track of which door goes where or if you've completed anything, and far too easy to die with far too checkpoints. yes, it's a "soulslike" but it just seems deliberately obtuse without much payoff. mainly you will spend your time dodging environmental hazards or traps, doing platforming that never feels quite right or very responsive, and then you will find a mediocre, repetitive boss fight that has a punishing difficulty spike and have to redo all of the platforming again as you inevitably lose. the enemies and the platforming don't properly train you for the boss battles in any way as many better games would do, they instead force you to lose and play through the worst parts of the game in order to have a chance to lose at the boss fight again and learn the pattern slightly better. in death's door this repeated navigation is simply boring, frustrating, and does not respect the player's time. the game desperately needs a better map system, or just a map of some kind at all, and the overworld needs to be almost entirely reorganized so that it doesn't feel like a chore to walk from one door to the next or interact with friendly npcs. i expected this to be a lot more fun, but i don't think i enjoyed any moment spent playing it. i've heard other reviews say the music and art style are cool. personally i found them both to be lacking in depth or texture. im rating this 4 stars because it's almost a halfway finished game.

Now that Tunic is out, we have a tangible example of what an enjoyable version of Death's Door might have looked like. Death's Door lacks a serious layer of polish and depth of world/level design that makes it more of a slog than it needs to be. Combat is very one-note and there are very few upgrades that add anything at all to the gameplay. The world design is more empty than lush; there are a few secrets here and there but there are way, way more functionally dead screens with nothing to do but wander aimlessly. Exploring the world is fundamental to the game and it just isn't fun. There are some interesting moments and touches, but they stand out against an overwhelmingly bland, gray experience. Death's Door is just too little personality in too big of a box.