Despite all the innovation that frequently takes place in the indie space, there’s an awful lot of games that are content to just do what’s already been done. It can be easy to become jaded, then, when a lot of these copycat games turn out to be worse than their clear inspiration. After all, who wants to waste their time playing a weak approximation of a better game? However, every now and then a game like Death's Door comes along. Death’s Door is a game that you’ve probably played before — and we don't just mean on other platforms where it's been available for months. Developer Acid Nerve doesn’t do anything new per se, yet delivers a tremendously well-designed experience that shows true mastery of the mechanics and genres it was inspired by, making for a game you won’t want to miss.
Death’s Door begins by placing you in the role of an adorable little crow who works as a Reaper at the Reaping Commission Headquarters, a Kafkaesque bureaucracy which is responsible for administrating the process of death. Every now and then there are beings that refuse to die, and these special cases are where Reapers like your character are dispatched to kill them and collect their souls. However, a Reaper is temporarily made mortal while on a mission, and they only regain their immortality status once the soul they were assigned is successfully brought back. This usually isn’t a problem, until someone intervenes in your character’s first assignment and casts your target soul behind the eponymous Death’s Door. To open it and retrieve your soul, you have no choice but to track down the owners of the three Giant Souls and kill them so you can win back your immortality.
It’s a fine story that frames the action well, bolstered by a memorable cast of supporting characters and a dry sense of humor to keep things from getting too serious. Plus, there are some interesting observations on life and death that cast some nice moral grayness over what you’re doing. The first major boss, for example, defies death because she wants to find a way to ensure that her loved ones won’t die. Narrative never takes precedence over gameplay in Death’s Door, but the brief cutscenes and character exchanges that pepper the lengthy bouts of action gameplay do a great job of keeping you focused on the next objective while immersing you ever more into this curious world.
Death’s Door features a semi-linear open world, wherein the path you take is mostly decided in advance, even though it feels like you’re discovering it for yourself. This means that it gets the best of both worlds, as your experience with Death’s Door is tightly controlled and paced, despite how often you may think that you’re ‘lost’. A typical level sees you spawn from the nearest door and picking a direction that seems like the way to go, fighting your way through an assortment of puzzles and enemy encounters all along the way. Then, just when it feels like you’re out of your depth or definitely went the wrong way, you pull a lever or shoot a lantern and reveal a path that takes you right back to the door you started from.
One checkpoint thus functions as multiple checkpoints for a given area, because even as you’re constantly progressing, you’re usually also unlocking various pathways back that show you haven’t really strayed as far as you think. This kind of checkpoint design creates a world that feels wonderfully cohesive, and one that can simultaneously feel big and small in the best of ways.
Of course, it’s not like you’re following a straight line the whole way through. Often, you’ll come upon a fork in the road, with one of those being the intended path and the other one leading you to another shortcut or some small collectible or prize. There are also plenty of sections where a trinket is displayed tantalizingly out of reach, and you’ll need to make a mental note to come back later with another tool or ability. There’s always something useful to find or do in the world of Death’s Door and it feels very ‘dense’ and thoughtfully designed in this regard. Nothing is out of place here; there’s always something meaningful to encounter, whether it be a new item to collect or another enemy encounter to survive.
Combat is quite high-risk, high-reward, and it continuously finds new ways to keep you on the edge of your seat. Your crow is quite nimble in combat and has an array of magical abilities to supplement slashing up their foes with their trusty sword, but they go down in only a few hits. Your enemies, meanwhile, have predictable attacks and can be dispatched in a few hits, but their numbers can often be their greatest asset. When you have four or five foes coming at you, it’s much harder to not accidentally roll into a fireball or swipe and, given that you’re only able to make a few mistakes in between checkpoints, this makes for some suitably tense stand offs as you nervously glance at your dwindling health.
You can heal yourself outside of checkpoints, but it’s quite limited. Throughout your adventure, you’ll find little seeds that you plant in pots at fixed points on the map. Planting a seed grows a flower that heals you completely, but then it dies upon use and doesn’t regrow until after your next respawn. So, any healing you do outside of a checkpoint is thus contingent on you both having a spare seed to plant and finding a pot in which to plant it, and this adds a whole new layer to how you approach any combat situations. Fighting recklessly, especially in new territory, is usually unwise because you never know how long you’re going to have to go before your next respite and a big fight could always just be around the corner.
Boss fights deserve a special mention here as well. Death’s Door does a great job of throwing encounters at you that feel fulfilling and really push you to master the crow’s movements. Your crow remains as vulnerable and easily dispatched as ever, while the bosses usually take dozens of hits to go down and feature complex attack patterns that get even worse across a few phases. It usually takes a few tries before you finally get each one down, and it feels like a worthwhile accomplishment every time because it takes a potent combination of patience, skill, and lessons learned across several attempts to achieve victory.
Killing any foes rewards your crow with soul energy, and this can then be taken back to the commission headquarters and cashed in for brief upgrades to give you an edge in combat. These can do things like speeding up your dodges or reducing the time to charge an attack, and each boost feels like a welcome and distinct step up. Additionally, boosting your crow’s health and magic limits is done by finding crystals scattered throughout the world at cleverly hidden shrines. These RPG-lite elements don’t add enough depth for you to meaningfully craft ‘builds’ for your crow, but they do provide a nice sense of progression to give you the feeling that you’ve grown on your journey. All these buffs will always be secondary, however, to the more abstract growth that you go through as you get better at reading enemy movements and chaining attacks together.
If you’ve read this far and have been thinking this all sounds like something you’ve played before, you’re right. The only meaningful complaint one could reasonably make about Death’s Door is that it plays too safe. Frankly, Death’s Door doesn’t bring any noteworthy new ideas to the table, and is mostly content to be yet another game that follows in the footsteps of Soulslikes and Zelda 'ripoffs'. That said, it’s a remarkably good take on that kind of game, so much so that we’d contend it stands above most other examples in the indie gaming space.
Of course, it’s always nice to play a game that brings a creative mechanic or iteration on a tired gameplay formula, but Death’s Door serves as a good reminder that a new game doesn’t have to be original to feel like it adds something to the genre. Death’s Door may not have anything you haven’t seen before, but every single minute is crafted with precision, focus, and intent; to coin a well-worn phrase, it’s all killer and no filler.
Visually, Death’s Door manages to be stunning, even if it seems rather simplistic on the surface. The models all have an exaggerated, chunky appearance that has a cartoonish vibe, but things like the soft shadows cast by a high-up, unseen tree canopy in the forest level show off a close attention to detail on the behalf of the developers. Also, your crow is quite small relative to most of the environments, which can create a nice sense of scale and the illusion that the world is huge.
We’d be remiss to skip out on discussing the wonderful soundtrack, too, which gives Death’s Door a lovely tone of playfulness and serenity. The music is mostly comprised of low-key orchestral pieces, mixing in lots of winds, acoustic guitars, and relaxing pianos. Even with the more intense music that plays in most battles, the soundtrack of Death’s Door never feels rushed or high energy, as if it’s inviting you to take your time and fully experience everything its world has to offer you.
Conclusion
Death’s Door is a modern classic, utilizing old gameplay ideas in a new setting to make for a short and sweet experience you won’t want to miss. The snappy combat, rewarding exploration, and relaxing music will stick with you once you've finished, and while it may not have anything 'new' to offer, Death’s Door is so high quality that you’ll hardly have time to think about it's lack of innovation. We’d give this one a very high recommendation, especially to any fans of Zelda or Soulslike games — Acid Nerve has crafted an experience that’s absolutely worth your time and money.
Comments 54
Nice, definitely be checking this out soon.
i am all over this.
People talk this game up and Switch is where I buy my Indies, so I'll get this down the line.
Nice, I guess I'll be grabbing a physical copy then!
Pre-orders for them open later today at 12PM Central Time (less than 4 hours from this post).
https://specialreservegames.com/
Though they have another game opening for pre-order early December, and you'll be able to order both together that way.
@Medic_Alert Agreed, Death’s Door is my game of the year, too. I’ve been playing it on PS5 for the past week and it’s an absolute joy from start to finish. I don’t give many 10/10 scores, but this is definitely one of them.
I love it so much, in fact, that I’m going to double dip and buy in on Switch, too. No doubt it’ll look fabulous on the OLED model.
This is the first I've heard of this game, but your review has me interested!
Great it's a decent port to Switch - definitely will pick Deaths Door up
Definitely gonna get this once I'm done with Dread! Looks great.
@Medic_Alert
Yeah, I certainly wouldn't rule it out.
A couple of Special Reserve Games' other releases such as Gris, and Carrion have gotten wider retail European releases before, though significantly later than their US boutique releases.
Ahh it looked that Switch port wouldn't happen so fast. Now I need to buy it again. )
It's a fantastic game. If I had to point one single flaw, I'd say the lack of a map sometimes gets in the way of exploration.
Downloading as we speak
No mention of how it performs on Switch? I've already heard how great the game is, I just wanted to know the quality of the port. I suppose since you didn't mention it, it's probably at least decent, but it would be nice if you let the reader know.
Yep, phenomenal game. Great somber atmosphere, and some really challenging boss fights. Some of them almost feel like a bullet hell game, with the amount of projectiles you have to dodge.
I played this game on my Series X and it’s one of my favorite games of the year. I am definitely picking up the Switch version, and will be playing this quite a bit when I want to take a break from Shin Megami Tensei V.
This game is incredible. I played it on my Series X and it's just...a must-play!
It may not reinvent any wheels, but the wheels it runs on are spectacular!
For a game that's short and doesn't bring anything new, I see no reason to rush into a full price purchase, but sure to get it down the road once the dust has settled and any chance at a physical release had time to materialize.
says reapers game WHAT IS THIS TWEWY?!?
@JoeSooper This is what I came here for. How is the Switch port? That's a huge factor in a review like this for a game that's already well known for its quality.
@Medic_Alert Character with sword is still just character with sword. Does the game do anything unique to crows that makes the difference in aesthetics meaningful?
I recently finished Death's Door at 100% on Xbox and this may be my game of the year. The theme, art style, learning curve, combat and soundtrack are all mesmerizingly good and I can't wait for more of where this came from.
I hope it doesn't need patching AT ALL for performance or bug fixes, because to be releasing physically right off the bat on switch and ps5 through Special Reserve Games; is nice and all; so long as the release doesn't suffer because of it. It would be nice to have a decent working version of the amazing series X release, pressed to switch cartridge to be preserved for all time.
@Medic_Alert Okay, so it's just an aesthetic difference, got it. That might support the "lack of new ideas," argument.
I've had my eye on Death's Door coming to Switch. Seems like my vibe. Will purchase down the line once I thin out my backlog a bit more.
Hoping Xbox's Tunic & Sable games will also make their ways to Switch as my yearned for Indie additions.
... Wun can only hope.
Just started unsighted. After that ill go with this one. If the performance is good that is.
@Medic_Alert A new idea does need to be gameplay, otherwise it's delusion. If it functions identically to Zelda, but looks like a crow, there's no point in playing both of the games. Pick the one you like most and play that. If they are mechanically not bringing anything new to the table, there's literally no point.
I played it back when it was released on Xbox and I LOVED it.
@BloodNinja that would be like saying if you played one Mario game, you have played them all. Some people might agree with that, but if you like the genre, why would you not play all the great games within that genre?
@Clutchtime If the experience is redundant, there's no point. And at least with Mario, each game adds or changes quite a bit, mechanically. Even Mario 1, 2, and 3 all play completely differently from each other. Bad comparison.
Added to watchlist for decent sale
@Medic_Alert Because it's a crow. And you're calling me dumb? lol ok fanboy!
@BloodNinja and in which Zelda game are you a sword wielding crow, fighting bullet hell bosses, all while trying to do your job for the Reaper's commission to ensure your immortality?
I guess I just do not understand your point.
A game made by two people… I mean, you have Battlefields, Cods, FIFA’s and Pokemon’s, Grand Theft Autos and Cyberpunk 2077s and they all boast unfathomable budgets and huge teams and just all the resources they need to produce money grabbing, lifeless, boring, un-innovative and mostly broken games.
But it’s the games like Deaths Door, made by dedicated, small, independent and budget limited game developers that put everything into it to make sure it is of the utmost quality. Well, what’s more original than that.
My backlog is ENORMOUS and in the last few weeks I've bought a stupid amount of games. However I'll be buying this on Friday and getting stuck right into it over the weekend.
And yet another to add to the backlog.
@BloodNinja focusing on the "doesn't have many new ideas" bullet point is really a disservice to the excellent experience this game offers. I'd even argue it's inclusion here as the only "con" in a sea of "pros" is a nitpick (after all, how can a game have no cons and not receive a perfect score?).
The game takes inspiration from many other sources, and unifies and presents those ideas in clever, charming and fulfilling ways. A near perfect marriage of various systems and ideas woven together - no different than how a game like Shovel Knight is both derivative of many other games and yet uniquely it's own thing.
Yes, it clearly takes a ton of inspiration from Zelda games and the like, but the moment to moment combat and gameplay is a vastly different beast. In no way is Death's Door a redundant experience.
I totally agree with this review! Great game, I highly recommend it!
@whitespy12 Still not my cup of tea, but I do appreciate the sane response. Was starting to wonder about this site LOL. "Don't say bad things about my favowite game!" Learned that lesson from talking about Metroid Dread lmfao
@JoeSooper I just bought it and it runs great and looks great. I'm playing handheld and the resolution looks to be 720 and I'm guessing 30fps. seems solid.
@MARl0 see my comment above
@OorWullie
Backlog life is getting real! I’ll definitely be picking this one up, not too mention the just announced release of 12 Minutes coming to Switch on Dec 7! I’m starting to believe I’ll never see my backlog through at this pace , is there a medical disorder known as backlog anxiety? If so might need time off work! heheho…anyhoo it’s nice seeing Switch getting a steady dose of quality ports ( not looking at you GTA!) I should probably just wait until that Boxing Day sale
@Neckcrane makes me think of Team Cherry.
@RupeeClock no version on Xbox is breaking my heart
Loved this game on series s. It had horrible input lag on Xbox one.
@JoeSooper exactly, cuz the Xbox one version had horrible input lag. Once i got a series s it was gone, so I'd be curious if that was present on this version. I played 1/3 at least like that, probably more, so i still liked it, it just took lots of getting used to.
Great review, definitely going to check this one out.
But I wanted to let you know, this person seems like he/she managed to write almost the same review as you. Just wanted to let you know
https://xijigame.com/death-door-review-switch-eshop/
@Alpacachino Wow... that's really blatant. Yikes.
Ronald just copied NL's Jessica Alba article as well.
Just completed on Xbox one. Took maybe an hour to get into nothing really jumped out and grabbed me initially but warmed to it and yes a 9 out of 10 for me. Got to the credits some hard boss battles for sure and a heart warming soundtrack! Moving on to 6souls 2 Moro xxx
I'm playing this game now on Switch and for the life of me cannot understand how this game gets a 9/10. Are we playing the same game? I find it boring, confusing what I should be doing next and laggy controls make fighting difficult. //edit: also it's pretty dull graphically, everything is so greenish. I should like it, I'm green you would say, but not with video games!!! And you give Baldo a 4. I'm signing out of NL.
Just started this game tonight. I like it, but feels like a clunkier Hyper Light Drifter and makes me wish I was playing that instead.
Lovely game! Challenging, good looking, good sounding, some light puzzling with fun combat, moody and funny, pretty long too. And the part after the endboss is very moody and mysterious.
I really hope they make a sequel, the secret ending teases it in my opinion.
My new favorite video game of all time. What a masterpiece of video game design.
@rushiosan Strange that this is not mentioned in the review indeed. An exploration game with no maps. Good that you're making note of it here.
The game is short alright (I completed it in 15h), the absence of maps made me go back and forth a lot.
I had a great time with it, but still there was no maps. Same issue as with Blue Fire.
But I have learned from Bayonetta Origins, better no maps than poorly made ones, really drove me crazy in that one.
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