At times, indie games can capture the magical capacity of seeming like a AAA titles in regards to soundtrack, aesthetics, performance, gameplay, and more. Acid Nerve, a team of two developers who also worked on the 2015 action-adventure game Titan Souls, released a beautifully crafted game called Death's Door today. This little gem is crushing the charts with overwhelmingly positive reviews that highlight the feel of the setting, which could be described as Studio Ghibli-esque, and how Death's Door succeeds at being a Zelda-like game in a way that still preserves its own identity.
Death's Door has plenty of puzzles to solve, dungeons to explore, secrets to find (including new weapons for the protagonist), a lot of lore to discover, and bits of dialogue that never feel empty. The game features a crow main character who has the very peculiar job of being a collector of souls - which is to say their primary purpose is to forcibly take the souls of creatures who have lived long enough. The premise does fit the common idea that crows are connected with death, which becomes literal when Death's Door's main character uses a sword and other weapons to reap the souls of enemies.
Death's Door Reviews and What the Game has to Offer
At the time of writing, Death's Door has collected plenty of enthusiastic reviews online. On Steam the game is sitting at a 93 percent positive score, and it has an average Metascore of 87 out of 100. Death's Door is one of the few games that has gotten this great a reception from the public in 2021, with other honorable mentions being It Takes Two and Disco Elysium: The Final Cut. As it stands, Acid Nerve's new release could very well be one of the major contenders of Game of the Year in 2021, especially if the reviews keep coming in over the next few hours and days.
Death's Door is, at its core, an isometric action-adventure game, and its combat system has quite a lot to offer if players dedicate themselves to collecting all weapons and upgrades. A few specific enemies and bosses alike tend to prefer the use of a weapon or two, and they will punish players who don't try to study their patterns to come up with an efficient strategy. However, combat also seems to be the one thing that doesn't bring everyone together when it comes to reviews, and the reason is that fighting enemies might feel like a feature with little-to-no depth for veteran players.
As such, Death's Door should be taken for what it is: a game that packs a lot for its price point, but not without missteps in execution and limits imposed by its scope. It takes around 10 hours to complete Death's Door, but it should be noted that there are plenty of puzzles to tackle, often leading to secrets that range from collectible items to a lightning-infused hammer. There's a certain feeling of wanderlust when traversing all the different areas in the game, and that's because the game does a great job at making its players feel like they might be missing out on something valuable by not exploring all the zones thoroughly.
While 2021 is far from over and many other potentially great games will be launching over the coming months, Death's Door does have a good shot at being among the best releases overall. Whether this will be the case remains to be seen, but the way Death's Door blends Dark Souls elements with Zelda gameplay is one of its most alluring assets.
Death's Door is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.