Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUECurse of the Dead Gods
You seek untold riches, eternal life, divine powers - it leads to this accursed temple, a seemingly-infinite labyrinth of bottomless pits, deadly traps, and monsters.
Why this score?
Original text · Simplified Chinese
体力、光暗和献血交易让动作决定与风险相连，短板集中在后期重复与终战数值压力。
Core gameplay
Weight 25%9.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
招架、精准闪避与体力管理让每次出手有重量，光暗和陷阱增加位置选择；末期长战斗拖慢节奏。
Builds & strategy
Weight 25%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
献血换装备、诅咒副作用和武器动作相连，风险收益取舍清楚；快武器优势限制平衡。
Replayability
Weight 20%7.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
神庙路线和诅咒改变部分处理方式，但有限房间与首领反复出现，后续变化不足以抵消重走流程。
Randomness & fairness
Weight 20%7.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
攻击模式可学，火光与闪避可主动避险；晚期传送敌人、吸血诅咒和终战检查压缩补救空间。
Polish & usability
Weight 10%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
快照肯定手柄操作与表现，视听提示帮助辨认完美闪避；长流程和低回报解锁影响便利性。
- Reviewer
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Rogue by Rogue · AI 资料评测- Version reviewed
Original text · Simplified Chinese
具体构建未知；以所引资料描述的版本为准
Scope and limitations
Original text · Simplified Chinese
基于收录资料与官方页面的主观归纳，未进行试玩。未实测各武器或终战难度；快照中相互冲突的公平性反馈按可读动作与后期风险分别考虑。
Review sources 02
- 01Archived materialView archived external material ↓
Original text · Simplified Chinese
收录评论与社区资料（2026-10-01 快照）
使用 作者观点摘要 的 Tier list Part 1 (2023) 及 玩家好评与批评 中的机制、交互、重复与易用性反馈；未将外部分数或旧等级用于计算。
- 02Web sourceView original ↗
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Curse of the Dead Gods 官方产品说明
2026-10-08 访问。确认诅咒双面影响、多类武器、光与火的战术用途，并列出已提供的辅助模式。 官方页面不单独证明平衡或稳定性。
Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
An isometric, Hades-adjacent action roguelite from Passtech Games where a treasure hunter delves procedurally generated Mesoamerican-themed temples, using parry-and-dodge combat, torch light management and a corruption/curse system.
Generally well received: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 83% of roughly 9,200 reviews), critics land in the high 70s to low 80s, and the combat is the near-universal highlight. The dissent is about structure rather than feel: a repetitive, grindy loop, limited enemy/room/weapon variety, slow meta-progression, and a punishing, RNG-heavy final temple. It spent about a year in Early Access (from March 2020) and launched fully on 23 Feb 2021 on PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One; post-launch support included a Dead Cells crossover in April 2021. Players often describe it as Hades on hard mode, but with much less story and personality, and it tends to be recommended to people who already like skill-based action more than to genre newcomers.
What players praise
- Crunchy, responsive combat built on parry, perfect dodge and weapon combos; many reviewers (critic and player) rate it above Hades for feel and fairness
- Skill-first design: limited randomness in weapons and synergies means learning enemies and patterns, not build luck, decides runs
- Light and darkness system: braziers and the torch reveal traps and reduce danger, and fire can turn enemies into light sources, adding a tactical layer
- Curse/corruption mechanic creates risk-reward decisions (taking curses or trading blood for loot) and runs with real tension
- Bosses with thematic, readable patterns, each tied to a god's domain (power, knowledge, etc.)
- Strong atmosphere and art direction for the Aztec/Maya-inspired temples, with good sound design (for example the death-whistle perfect-dodge cue)
- Large weapon roster (claws, swords, hammers, etc.) with different movesets, plus pleasant pick-up-and-put-down run length
- Polished after a long Early Access period; performs well and is playable on controller and Switch
What players criticize
- Repetition: the same limited set of rooms, traps, enemies and bosses are learned by heart within roughly 15 hours, and the structure forces replaying earlier temples to reach later ones
- Story and characters are thin to non-existent, so there is little narrative pull to keep running
- Late-game difficulty feels cheap to many: teleporting, briefly invulnerable enemies, area attacks and health-sponge elites in the last temples
- Final temple is long and grindy, with heavy gold requirements for final sacrifices and a DPS-check final boss that players call a wall
- Weapon balance is uneven; some players feel fast weapons like claws dominate and other weapons are technically viable but worse
- Curses often feel weak or randomly punishing: some reviewers say they rarely affect a run, while in the last temple the health-draining curse can leave you one hit from death
- Slow, low-value meta-progression: unlocks cost a lot of crystal skulls for marginal gains
- Achievements (including memoir-style completionist ones) are seen as grindy for 100% runs
- Heavy reliance on RNG (starting items, late-game luck) makes the back half feel slow and unfair, and several reviewers say the final boss is a chore rather than a challenge
Distinctive features
- Torch and brazier light management that changes both visibility and damage, rather than being just cosmetic lighting
- Corruption meter that builds from room transitions and blood trades, spawning rule-changing curses instead of only giving buffs
- Souls-like, turn-taking combat rhythm (strike then defend) in an isometric roguelite instead of Hades-style fast aggression
- Parry-centred weakening/stun mechanic tied to blessings, with the sense of a slower, more deliberate run
- Temple-by-temple structure with tiered boss sections and a distinctive Mesoamerican-inspired setting
- Crossover content such as the Dead Cells weapon pack (April 2021)
Divided opinions
- Whether it is a good roguelike or just a good action game: some say slow, methodical combat suits a run-based loop, others say it is a poor fit because runs are slow and repetitive
- Difficulty and curses: some love the skill ceiling and risk-reward tension, others find late difficulty and RNG curses cheap
- Progression pace: fans like slow unlocks that preserve weapon preferences, critics of it call the grind a chore
- Hades comparison: praised as better combat and fairer, but clearly behind on story, art style and character
Repetition and friction
- Re-clearing the first section of each temple to reach deeper boss tiers, then repeating the whole structure for the final temple and hard mode
- Grinding crystal skulls for weapons, blessings, rerolls and better starting gear, with some players saying normal difficulty feels gated by those hours
- Rooms packed with five or more enemies, many tanky or unparryable, which slow the pace and undermine the parry mechanic
- Teleporting/invulnerable enemies and screen-filling attacks in later temples that feel more like waiting than skill
- Elite health-sponge enemies and high gold costs in the final temple
Hoped-for improvements
- More enemy, room, boss and weapon variety so later runs feel different
- Faster or more meaningful meta-progression, and fewer repeat traversals of earlier temples
- Better tuning of the final temple: less elite health-sponge padding, more viable dexterity/damage builds, and a fairer gold requirement
- More story, characters or lore payoff to give a reason to keep running
- More reliable tools for managing corruption, so the curse system feels like a choice and not a dice roll
- Clearer or more predictable handling of tanky/unparryable enemies in large mixed-enemy rooms
Metacritic PC critic score is 78 from 20 critic reviews (user score 6.9 from 112 ratings), verified on the Metacritic page. OpenCritic shows a Top Critic Average of 81 from 50 reviews with 86% recommending (Strong tier). IGN called it a standout roguelite; Nintendo Life compared the combat favorably to Hades; Game Informer felt it went stale after several runs. Launched from Early Access (March 2020, initially only the Jaguar section) to full release on 23 Feb 2021 on Windows, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One (no Mac/Linux). Steam price $19.99, SteamSpy owners estimate 500K-1M, about 84 concurrent players at time of data, and recent Steam reviews are still being posted, so it has an active if small audience. No major controversies found.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam app data: 83.4% positive of 9,242, SteamSpy owner range, revenue estimate (local file) ↗
- Metacritic critic score 78 (20 reviews) and user score 6.9 (112 ratings) ↗
- OpenCritic Top Critic Average 81, 86% recommend, 50 reviews ↗
- Release timeline, Early Access, Dead Cells crossover, per-platform Metacritic scores, IGN/Nintendo Life/Game Informer reception ↗
- Prima Games review 'Hades on hard mode' (via search snippet; page itself blocked with 403) ↗
- God is a Geek review (via search snippet) ↗
- Tampere University Playlab review on light mechanics, parry and corruption curse ↗
- Estimated gross/net revenue (Boxleiter-based estimate) ↗
- Steam community discussion surfaced in search (not fetched) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Curse of the Dead Gods is a third-person action dungeon crawler with an Indiana Jones-style hero, multiple weapons and abilities, and a core mechanic built around curses. Nearly every action (opening doors, buying, upgrading) can curse you, bringing big upsides and downsides that force you to adapt each run. He loves the crisp, meaningful combat and VFX, and finds it a very challenging but rewarding risk-reward game. He is surprised it did not get more recognition and places it in a solid A tier.
What the creator praises
- Curse system that attaches big upsides and downsides to almost every action and reshapes each run
- Amazing, crisp combat where every action feels meaningful, e.g. swinging a heavy hammer
- Phenomenal visual effects and great overall visuals
- Great boss fights and very unique enemy designs
- Strong risk-reward focus throughout
- Rogulite upgrading gives long-term progression
Issues raised by the creator
- Very challenging and not easy
- Parry system is very unforgiving
- Stamina must always be managed carefully, making it tough
- Takes a long time to finish (about 20 hours for his one completion) with a lot of upgrading
Design observations
- Curses as the defining mechanic, tied to nearly every interaction, with heavy upside/downside tradeoffs
- Runs must be adjusted around the curse concept, which the devs put heavy focus on
