Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEHeroes of Hammerwatch
Heroes of Hammerwatch is a rogue-lite action-adventure. Explore and battle your way through procedurally generated levels on your own or with up to 3 friends.
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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
A pixel-art, top-down action roguelite from Crackshell (published by Team17) where you push through procedurally generated dungeon floors solo or in 4-player online co-op, sending gold and ore back to a persistent town to upgrade seven (nine with DLC) heroes.
Players rate it Very Positive on Steam (about 87-88% positive, roughly 9.5k reviews in the local data; the store page shows about 4.7k English reviews, with the last 30 days sitting at Mostly Positive, 75% of 20 reviews). Metacritic has no critic reviews, and its 14 user ratings average 7.2, which is less enthusiastic than Steam. The core combat, class variety and co-op are widely liked, but the most common complaint is that the meta-progression is slow and padded, which Steam reviewers describe as grindy well beyond the norm for a roguelite. It is a finished, content-rich game with three DLC expansions (Witch Hunter, Pyramid of Prophecy, Moon Temple) and a Workshop/level editor. Reviewers still report old bugs as of late 2025, including a character-overwrite save bug and black-screen issues, so polish is uneven. Its successor Heroes of Hammerwatch II now exists, so this entry is in maintenance territory. I could not retrieve critic reviews from major outlets, so critic sentiment is essentially absent.
What players praise
- Moment-to-moment top-down hack-and-slash/shoot combat is praised as good fun, even by reviewers who quit over grind
- Persistent town with shopkeepers and upgrades gives a satisfying early progression loop; town unlocks carry across all heroes
- Strong co-op: up to 4 players online, and several reviewers say it is far better with friends than solo
- Seven distinct classes (nine with DLC) with different skill sets, plus item sets that scale builds as you collect pieces
- Simple item model: no equipment management, pickups apply instantly, which keeps runs quick and easy to jump into
- Risk/reward gold banking: you must send gold to town (with a random tax rate) or lose it if you die, which creates tension
- Huge content volume: lots of floors, secrets, traps, bosses, New Game+ tiers and three expansions
- Steam Workshop and a built-in level editor extend the game; mods are popular for speeding up or unlocking content
What players criticize
- Grind is the dominant complaint: maxing one character reportedly takes hundreds of thousands of gold while a run earns about 10-20k before tax
- The gold tax mechanic (more gold held means a worse rate) is called pointless padding that slows progression
- Upgrades and town purchases are per-character in many cases, so each new hero means re-buying expensive upgrades
- Most traps and some enemy attacks have no invincibility frames, so players can be chain-hit and killed instantly
- Chest/key system feels random: players report holding keys with no chests, or finding locked chests with no keys, and needing 40+ of a material that does not drop
- Build diversity is shallow; many items are flat damage or speed boosts, and late runs feel like stacking bigger numbers
- Reused assets and enemies from the first Hammerwatch make it feel less fresh to returning fans
- Long-standing bugs: a reported save bug that deletes a character and replaces it with a copy of the last played one, random crashes, black screens on exit or at the final boss, and lobby disconnects in co-op
Distinctive features
- Town-building meta progression shared across a roster of heroes, rather than a single run-based unlock tree
- Gold banking with random tax: send money home to keep it, or carry it at risk of losing everything on death
- Item-set system with instant-apply pickups and no inventory or gear slots
- Shortcut/skip mechanics and alternate paths through tiers, plus a huge New Game+ ladder (achievement hunters cite NG+7/NG+8 requirements)
- Built-in level editor and Steam Workshop support, with popular mods adding classes and unlocks
- Roguelite evolution of the original Hammerwatch's lose-it-all roguelike formula, set in the same universe
Divided opinions
- Co-op vs solo: reviewers repeatedly say it shines with friends but the grind is hard to justify alone
- Grind tolerance: some players love the long town-and-character progression while others call it worse than mobile gacha games
- Difficulty and build freedom: some find it easy and relaxed, others feel underpowered without gold spent on upgrades and find traps unfair
- Workshop mods: several players say the game is only fun with progression-speed mods, which others see as a fix for design flaws
Repetition and friction
- Repeating the same floors to farm the same two materials (gold and ore), with progress that feels slower the further you get
- Needing to beat every boss with every character because those clears give permanent bonuses to all heroes, even classes you dislike
- Progression slows after roughly NG+2 as runs become numbers-only scaling, per a 112-hour solo player who stopped at NG+4
- Small corridors and heavy ranged enemy spam make individual fights annoying for some, especially solo
- Death resets feel punishing because runs that die before banking resources yield nothing, which one Metacritic user called a hamster-wheel design
Hoped-for improvements
- Share more upgrades (potions, blessings, stat upgrades) across all heroes instead of per character
- Reduce or remove the gold tax, and lower prices of items like pets (one reviewer says 25k for a pet is too much)
- Fix the character-deletion save bug and black-screen/crash issues that players say have persisted for years
- Give more build variety and less flat-number item design so New Game+ runs feel different
- Raise or remove shopkeeper purchase limits in dungeons and make key/chest and material drops less random
- Add crossplay and improve multiplayer stability and desync handling; also better controller and Steam Deck support
Released March 1, 2018 (Steam, Windows/Linux, no Mac) at $14.99, developed by Crackshell and published by Team17. The local Steam data shows a Very Positive all-time rating, and the recent window is slightly lower at Mostly Positive. Three paid expansions exist: Witch Hunter, Pyramid of Prophecy and Moon Temple. A sequel, Heroes of Hammerwatch II, exists and has its own DLC. Metacritic lists no critic reviews and only 14 user ratings (7.2), and I could not find an OpenCritic listing. I could not retrieve Reddit, news patch notes or outlet reviews because of tool limits, so launch-era critic reception and recent patch history are not verified here. The original Hammerwatch (2013) has a Metascore of 72 per Wikipedia, which is a different game. Late-2025/2026 Steam reviews still mention save-deletion, black-screen and disconnect bugs, suggesting low ongoing patch activity.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (grind, tax, traps without i-frames, save bug, co-op praise) ↗
- Local Steam metadata: appid 677120, release date, review counts, tags, SteamSpy owners, revenue estimate ↗
- Steam store page: recent vs all-time review summary, features, DLC list ↗
- Metacritic page: no critic reviews, user score 7.2 from 14 ratings ↗
- Metacritic user reviews: co-op praise, repetitiveness and build-diversity complaints ↗
- Steam community forum topics: controller, desync, Steam Deck, mouse input issues ↗
- Revenue estimate (Boxleiter method), about $3.16M gross ↗
- Original Hammerwatch reception for context; confirms Heroes of Hammerwatch is a sequel ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Heroes of Hammerwatch is a chill top-down action dungeon-crawler roguelite. PepperHead has only tried it two or three times because the trailers look exciting but reaching the bosses requires a slow grind. He finds the early game repetitive and not very engaging, though the game is cute and he may return someday. He places it in a low B tier for now.
What the creator praises
- Looks cool and cute in trailers
- Relaxed, chill top-down dungeon-crawler vibe
- Promise of lots of content and cool stuff deeper in
- He could see himself coming back to it one day
Issues raised by the creator
- Need to grind quite a bit to get started
- Early game is boring and very repetitive
- Always starts in the same dungeon with the same critters
- Moment-to-moment gameplay not very engaging early on
- Getting to the bosses takes a long time; pacing too slow
Design observations
- Not very unique as a game; mostly notable for its appealing look
- Needs upfront build-up and unlocking before the fun content is reachable
