Imagine relearning how to ride a bike, despite being a pretty confident cyclist already. That's what playing the 33 Immortals beta feels like, and I mean that with love. Despite previous reservations that had set the bar unfairly high, given my overwhelming love for Hades 2 and Supergiant's own brand of narrative roguelike, developer Thunder Lotus is cooking up something completely different in 33 Immortals.
You can't blame me for the flash comparison. The elevator pitch can be summarized as an isometric roguelike about lost souls venturing through Hell to defy an unjust God, aided by numerous figures from Roman or Greek mythology in an adaptation of Dante's 14th century poem, The Divine Comedy. But Thunder Lotus is an online multiplayer game, and that makes Diablo – or some of the best MMORPGs like World of Warcraft – a more fair comparison given the tighter focus on teamwork. I had no idea what to expect from 33 Immortals' drop-in raids and loot-driven dungeons in practice, and truthfully, it came with a fair share of mechanical teething problems that I'd like to see smoothed over for launch. Still, those didn't detract from 33 Immortals' potential to become one of the most interesting, innovative games of the year – and I'll never compare it to Hades again.
