Halls of Torment Review – A ‘Bullet Heaven’ Diablo

The onslaught of games following in Vampire Survivors‘ wake makes perfect sense considering the near-universal acclaim and widespread success of Poncle’s breakout hit. Lead designer Luca Galante has previously said in interviews that the team took their experience working on gambling machines and implemented it into a roguelike, resulting in Vampire Survivors having an incredibly strong sense of instant gratification and a rewarding dopamine loop that makes spending hundreds of hours in the game almost a foregone conclusion. My own experience with Vampire Survivors is that I found myself hooked from the first few minutes of gameplay, having been a long-time dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Castlevania series and roguelikes. And, like many others, one of the first thoughts I had after playing Vampire Survivors was “Someone should do this with Diablo.” Well, now someone has with Halls of Torment.

Initially launching into Early Access on Steam on May 24, 2023, Halls of Torment has quickly risen up to the top of a pile of prospective “Bullet Heaven” games looking to take Vampire Survivors‘ crown. The main draw of the game has always been its blending of Vampire Survivors‘ roguelike gameplay with the atmosphere and setting of Diablo, and the ways that Halls of Torment perfectly captures the RPG elements and vibe of the original Diablo and its timeless sequel make it feel like a roguelike cousin to Blizzard’s classic ARPGs. But more than just a cool setting and clever riff on the Vampire Survivors formula, Halls of Torment is something special. The title’s recent launch into 1.0 makes it now a viable candidate for a review, and it just might be the year’s greatest roguelike and one of the few worthy competitors with Vampire Survivors.

Iterating on the Vampire Survivors Formula

It might sound reductive to say that Halls of Torment is almost a perfect blend between Vampire Survivors and Diablo, but it would be fairly close to the truth. Initially, players have their choice between one of three classes, with those options dramatically expanding as players reach certain thresholds during gameplay. Similar to Vampire Survivors, players will eventually unlock a plethora of different characters with their own signature attacks, but the Diablo elements begin to truly shine through in how players approach their upgrades during Halls of Torment‘s moment-to-moment gameplay. Each of the different classes has various stats that each synergize with the different upgrades that players roll with every level up. Instead of just focusing on pure damage output, Halls of Torment forces players to consider the best skill load-outs for their current class.

Picking the best skills for the situation is of utmost importance, too, as Halls of Torment is not shy about throwing hordes of enemies at the player. Just like both Vampire Survivors and Diablo, most enemies players face are weak cannon fodder. The challenge of fighting them and surviving each run comes through in the overwhelming numbers of foes that Halls of Torment throws at players. Thankfully, the game borrows liberally from the absurd power curve of Diablo, and it doesn’t take long before players are more than capable of melting entire screens of baddies in just a couple of attacks. It also doesn’t hurt that each new class the game introduces feels fun to play. In my experience, there are genuinely no bad classes in Halls of Torment, and experimenting with different classes and trying different load-outs never stops being a blast.

Nailing the Meta-Progression Curve

Aside from the upgrades players get from leveling up during each run, a roguelike needs to have meaningful meta-progression in order for players to stick around for the long haul. Whether through upgrading characters/classes or having permanent upgrades that carry from run to run, nailing the balance of meaningful progression in each run along with providing a satisfying meta-progression curve is what can make or break a roguelike. Thankfully, Halls of Torment borrows from Vampire Survivors‘ playbook here as well. Players can take the gold they earn each run back to the hub area and spend it on permanent upgrades that apply to all classes. These include things like pickup range, health, attack speed, and other metrics that, cumulatively, have a major impact on the player’s success.

But where Halls of Torment kicks things up a notch is with its gear system. Taking a page from the classic Diablo games, each class has a gear loadout that they need to manage. Players can equip a helmet, armor, boots, gloves, amulet/necklace, and two rings. Any gear that might not work for a certain class or benefit them in any meaningful way can be sent back to the hub area using single-use wells in each level, and the gear that gets sent up can then be equipped on the appropriate class at the beginning of a run. As you can imagine, this can have a major impact on the starting power of a character during a run, and the mini-meta that Halls of Torment‘s gear system introduces is just another layer of satisfying progression that positions the title as a comfortable middle ground between its two biggest inspirations.

An Atmosphere Pulled Straight From Blizzard’s Classics

While the gameplay strikes a comfortable balance between Diablo and Vampire Survivors, Halls of Torment‘s visuals and presentation pay a loving homage to the former rather than the latter. Halls of Torment looks like both the original Diablo and Diablo II to the letter. The visual style, enemy designs, music, and even the character equipment screen look as if they’re straight from Blizzard’s legendary ARPGs. In particular, the music strikes a similar somber and melancholic tone as the soundtrack to the original Diablo. Even the character voicework and in-game story delivery are eerily similar to the same presentation style of the 1997 classic. But where it may have come off as shameless imitation in less talented hands, Halls of Torment turns it into the sincerest form of flattery in the best way.

One area in Halls of Torment that somewhat suffers from the game’s influences, though, is level design. Levels in survivor-like/bullet heaven games are traditionally fairly flat and don’t feature much variation in topography or height. HoT follows suit, delivering levels that are essentially large, flat planes with barely any variance in their environments. It doesn’t detract from the gameplay, but it also prevents Halls of Torment from doing anything new with regard to the interactive spaces players inhabit. And, when you consider how inventive and detailed some of Diablo and Diablo II‘s dungeon designs are, it’s a shame that Halls of Torment stopped short of borrowing from those games in terms of their level design. That said, “flat” levels make sense for a survivor-like, and this might be the only possible gripe against the game (and a minor one, at that).

Quests and Challenges Galore

Just like Vampire Survivors, Halls of Torment features a litany of challenges for players to complete alongside its main quest. That long list of challenges is further separated into all-time challenges across each run, level-specific challenges, and character/class-specific challenges. Even the abilities themselves get in on the fun, with several challenges that players can chase based on dealing certain amounts of damage with specific attacks or permutations of the different abilities characters can acquire during runs. Taken as a whole, the challenges in Halls of Torment add even more replay value to a game that players could easily spend a thousand hours in without batting an eye.

Another area where Halls of Torment borrows more from Diablo than Vampire Survivors is with its main quest and story. There’s a story in Vampire Survivors, but it’s threadbare at best and mostly just a loose thread connecting each stage. Conversely, Halls of Torment features a full-blown narrative and lore. Incorporating story elements into a roguelike can be difficult, but developer Chasing Carrots deserves some credit for what they’ve done here. In each new stage, players will collect tomes with story information and background on the game’s world, meet new characters, and gradually build up to a final confrontation with the lords of the titular Halls. It’s admittedly a story that comes second to the gameplay, but it’s there for those who go looking for it.

Technical State & What’s Improved After Early Access

As someone who put dozens of hours into Halls of Torment in Early Access, I’m happy to report that the game is only better after reaching its official 1.0 launch. The main improvements come in the form of balance changes and simply more content. What was on offer in the Early Access build was already great and worthy of coming back to time and again, and the full release of Halls of Torment just gives players more of an already good thing. The Early Access build was already optimized for Steam Deck, and the same holds true in 1.0. Survivor-likes (and, really, roguelikes in general) are a perfect fit for the Steam Deck and one of the main use cases for handheld PCs, and Halls of Torment is sure to become one of the most-played games on the platform just like Vampire Survivors.

One thing to note, however, is that I did experience hard crashes on three different occasions while playing on Steam Deck. These incidents were rare enough to where I can count them on a single hand, but they did come at some inopportune times. In one scenario, I had just defeated the Lord of Pain in the Haunted Caverns when Halls of Torment crashed and kicked me to the Steam Deck’s home screen. That said, there were no crashes to speak of when playing on a desktop. Further, since the game’s 1.0 launch, I haven’t experienced a single bug, much less a hard crash. It seems like the technical issues are a result of the developer pushing out updates and patches in preparation for the 1.0 launch. In other words, Halls of Torment should be in a formidable state from here on out.

Bottom Line

There’s a strong argument to be made that Vampire Survivors is a perfect game. It’s addictive, it’s fun, it’s easy to pick up and play, and there’s thousands of hours of content. Even better, it costs less than $5 and has a ton of DLC to pick up. Halls of Torment is sure to occupy a similar space, becoming one of the must-play roguelikes of 2024 and acting as a worthy successor to Vampire Survivors. With a list price of $4.99 and potentially hundreds (or even thousands) of hours of content, Halls of Torment doesn’t shy on delivering plenty of bang for your buck. Both Diablo and Vampire Survivors are endlessly replayable games, and Halls of Torment mixes the best elements of each. If you’re a fan of either (or both), you owe it to yourself to add Halls of Torment to your library.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Halls of Torment key art.