I Returned to Hordes of Hunger… and It’s WORSE?

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• DEVELOPER: Hyperstrange
• PUBLISHER: Kwalee
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Survivor-like / Rougelite
• RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2025
• STARTING PRICE: 14,79€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Hordes of Hunger is a survivorslike game currently available on Steam Early Access. I first previewed it back in May, and now, five months and a wealth of updates later, I’m diving back in. A ton of content has been added, from an endless mode and story continuation to new weapons and abilities. But despite all the additions, the gameplay feels worse than it did at launch.

When Grinding Kills the Fun

You play as Mirah, fending off hordes of bloodthirsty creatures. The core loop is familiar: wield powerful weapons, learn new skills, and stop the advancing horde. Like a typical survivorslike game, you begin each run with basic abilities, then gain random powers by earning XP from monsters or completing objectives. The longer you play, the more powers and abilities you unlock.

However, the game makes a key departure from the genre: it does not feature an auto-attack system. Instead, you control everything from a third-person perspective, utilizing multiple ways to attack and defend, including a dash, side-step, parry, and jump slash. While this level of direct control sounds great on paper, in reality, the entire experience bogs down into excessive grinding. It takes an unreasonably long time to fully upgrade your character, and this slow, monotonous unlock progression ultimately makes the game absolutely no fun.

While my initial impressions praised the smoother, easier gameplay, I can no longer say the same. The enemies are now overly frustrating; too many possess long-range attacks and complex, multi-stage attack patterns, making even mini-bosses and larger foes incredibly difficult to manage. The underlying problem is that the entire combat system feels clunky and punishing.

Endless Mode’s Fatal Flaw

The parry system is a perfect example: you have a tiny window to hit the parry button, but missing it locks you into a two-second recovery animation, a guaranteed death sentence when surrounded by a horde. Furthermore, the jump attack animation is too long. During that commitment, you can be killed quickly. The only truly viable combat strategy is to stick to the basics: relying on dash and side-step while using light and heavy attacks.

The ability scaling in Hordes of Hunger is wildly inconsistent. Some abilities feel overpowered, while others are entirely underwhelming. Choosing passive upgrades like increased attack speed, physical power, or movement speed upon leveling up feels like a waste of a slot. In contrast, selecting active builds centered around elemental damage, like lightning, area-of-effect fire, or holy magic weapon buffs, immediately shows significant results.

But even among the strong choices, there is one clear winner: the vampire build. This strategy, which lets you heal up by dashing into and killing enemies, is undeniably the most viable build in the game. All other build options are comparatively underwhelming, ineffective, and simply “meh.” Additionally, the inclusion of Endless Mode feels like a joke. The design completely fails because the game offers no reliable way to heal unless you specifically run the Vampire Build.

Agonizingly Slow

This lack of regeneration, combined with the spawning enemy variety, leads to quick deaths. I have to specifically call out the exploding enemies that deal massive damage and spam the entire map. Are players supposed to find this fun? This forced dependence on one specific build and the constant, unavoidable damage simply doesn’t work when coupled with the game’s clunky third-person controls and the cooldowns on defensive actions against overwhelming hordes.

To make matters worse, the mode is overly repetitive, recycling the same bosses and objectives far too frequently. As mentioned, progression is agonizingly slow. You barely acquire the weapon runes needed to upgrade and improve your arsenal, and unlocking new ones like axes and hammers takes far too long. This slow pace is compounded by the “Feathers” system, the resource used for permanent out-of-battle upgrades like increased XP gain, health, or damage.

The cost of these upgrades increases exponentially, while the Feather drops remain minimal. To properly level up your character and feel appropriately powerful, you must relentlessly grind the game to an absurd degree. The reward-to-cost ratio is completely broken, making progression feel like a chore.

Ultimately Underwhelming

Ultimately, I didn’t have fun. While there’s initial enjoyment in experimenting with abilities and various builds, the novelty quickly fades. The experience is locked into the same sequence, the same repetitive map aesthetics, and the same atmosphere, with nothing ever truly changing. The game is, in general, underwhelming.

What started as a promising concept has completely deteriorated. Despite the “Mostly Positive” reviews on Steam, I simply cannot recommend Hordes of Hunger when there are far superior alternatives available. A title like Megabonk, for instance, offers a better experience for a lower price. Until Hordes of Hunger receives significant rebalancing and mechanical improvements, I see no reason to return.

Review copy provided by the publisher