Anzeige
Games and Products

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap

Following the (late) success of Orcs Must Die! 3, Robot Entertainment releases the spin-off Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, which retains many of the core elements of the series, but this time without a linear campaign, focusing instead on replayability with roguelite elements. A good idea?

Marcel Kleffmann28.01.2025 08:09
Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap
Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap Robot Entertainment

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is still a mix of third-person action and tower defense, although players build stationary traps on walls, the ground or the ceiling rather than classic towers. Players must defend one or more locations, usually crystals, on the map from attacking hordes of orcs and their allies. If too many orcs attack the crystal being defended, the game is over. So players have to build clever combinations of nasty traps (fire, acid, lasers, crossbows, spikes, swinging clubs, barbed vines, tar and more) exactly where the enemies will run - shown by holograms between rounds. It is also possible to build barricades to influence the enemy's movement path, creating bottlenecks or, even better, combining several enemy paths into one, ending in a great orc-destroying gauntlet. Barricades are now free, but the number of barricades that can be placed is limited to 16, meaning that players will have to think carefully about where to place them, especially as the orcs tend to come in through multiple entrances.

Anzeige

Players take control of a War Mage, each with unique weapons, abilities, traps and playstyle. It's best to fight right in the middle of the traps for the best combos... or to hunt down enemies that can overcome or bypass the defences, which are mostly flying enemies. In this respect, the developers have expanded and improved both melee and ranged combat compared to previous titles, especially as the heroes are more diverse. It is also the first game in the series to feature a four-player co-op mode.


This time, the structure of the game is quite different from its predecessors, which typically featured a linear story campaign, with levels that could later be played in endless mode for high scores. This time, there is no classic campaign; instead, players begin a run consisting of several levels plus a boss level. While the map layout of the levels is fixed and surprisingly complex, there are plenty of random events and factors to add variety - sometimes with really nasty penalties. In the level itself, players start by setting up traps and barricades, then start the wave of enemies, and after each wave, players are presented with rogue-lite upgrades for the current run, from which they can choose one of three options. Then it's back to building traps, killing more enemies, choosing upgrades until the level is finished. Then it's back to building traps, killing more enemies and choosing upgrades until the level is finished. Then it is on to the next level, with the remaining rift points (what the orcs are attacking) spread across the whole run. This can be overwhelming, especially for newcomers, when a map has, say, four entrances and players are immediately faced with flying units that ignore barricades and nasty hero hunters. This would have worked better with a short tutorial campaign, but at least there are videos in the game showing how the concept works.

As good as the concept of roguelite runs is, and as much as I appreciate the increased variety in the levels themselves, I personally miss the ability to play really large and long sessions - and to build really large and extensive slaughter machines on a grand scale. What is clearly missing is an endless mode and a map that allows for such mazes. Hopefully the developers will add this at a later stage, as they will be looking at the feedback from the community regarding the new roguelite direction... Also missing is the ability to see which enemies will be coming out of the entrances in the next wave, which would make it easier to prepare for the flying units.

"When I started drafting the pitch for this iteration of OMD, I really wanted to focus on two things: replayability and four player co-op. The "rogue" elements give us far more variety than a short, linear campaign followed by Endless and leaderboard chasing that only appeals to a small percentage of our overall player base. The Mission Run system is also far friendlier to groups of friends that may have players jump in and out at different times vs. a linear campaign or six-hour Endless map. But! This is called Deathtrap and not OMD4 for these reasons. There's always a possibility we will return to the traditional format in the future." - Kyle Snyder, Game Director, Robot Entertainment

Depending on how far the players get and how many waves of orcs they kill, they will receive a certain number of skulls as currency. These can be spent on a variety of upgrades in your own fortress, which acts as a hub between runs. Traps can be upgraded (15 upgrades per trap), and there are two skill trees: a small skill tree with upgrades for each character, and a large skill tree with general upgrades that apply to all characters. Golden Skulls, which are the reward for completing a level in a run, are used to unlock more traps. This allows players to get stronger from run to run, improve their favourite traps and characters, and then take on the orc bosses. And then there are threads, which are the (roguelite) upgrades that players can choose between in-game between waves, which can also be unlocked with skulls. This is how you can further increase the upgrade pool. However, it seems that the first few missions tend to be too easy, and the later levels of a run tend to be a little too hard - and to succeed there, a little too much grind is required. Also, it is not possible to pause a run, only to abort it.

Overall, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap has more upgrades and improvements for traps and heroes than any other game in the series, although this is of course also due to the roguelite framework, in which the aim is to get a little stronger with each run, even if you fail. Instead of three difficulties, there is one core difficulty based on the number of players, which gets harder with each mission during a single run - and it is possible to boost enemy HP and damage for bonus skulls. Visually, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap uses Unreal Engine 5 and looks very similar to the third game, but it is even more colourful and the enemy models, in particular, look even rounder and cuddlier, even though the traps later on chop up the enemies quite badly.


The franchise is developed by Robot Entertainment, an independent game development and publishing studio founded in 2009 in Plano, USA. The first game, Orcs Must Die, was released in 2011 and combined strategic tower defense with third-person action. Part two followed just one year later. The biggest new feature was a co-op multiplayer mode. In 2017, Robot Entertainment tried free-to-play and PvP with Orcs Must Die! Unchained, which was not well received by players. "We learned a lot about the challenges of sustaining a free-to-play game. While it didn't last as long as we hoped, fans still tell us that they loved the unique heroes we created," the Texas-based studio wrote. After Orcs Must Die! Unchained, they needed to get back to the basics of what made the franchise successful in the first place: Orcs Must Die! 3 - first exclusive to Stadia for a year, then to PC and consoles. Despite this, the third game went on to sell over 13,000 CCU and receive two expansions in total, and in the end it may have saved Robot Entertainment: "We explored some new additions to gameplay such as War Scenarios, where we significantly increased the number of invading orcs, and Scramble Mode, where we first experimented with roguelite concepts. This version has been a nice success and inspired us to push on."

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap arrives on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) and Xbox Series X|S on 28 January 2025. Ports for other consoles are planned, but nothing is certain at this time.

Conclusion

The mix of action-packed, over-the-top comic-book-style combat against cute and cuddly fantasy enemies and building traps and towers is great fun, especially in co-op. The roguelite elements add to the replay value, but there are no endless maps at the moment and the roguelite progress could be faster.

Features
  • More replayability with roguelite elements and more trap and character upgrades
  • 4-player co-op for the first time
  • Very colourful and stylish fantasy visuals

Anzeige