Most survivor-likes look like each other. Halls of Torment looks like Diablo 1, and that turns out to matter far more than a visual choice should.
The dark isometric halls, the item drops, the boss waiting at the end of each hall — none of it changes the underlying auto-attacking loop, but all of it changes how the loop reads. Runs feel like descents rather than timers, and that alone separates this from a crowded field.
What the 95 percent is actually for
It sits at 95 percent positive on Steam across more than 31,000 reviews, which is near the top of the entire category. That score is earned, and it is worth being specific about why.
The presentation is doing real work. It would be easy to dismiss the Diablo styling as a skin, but the item drops and the hall structure genuinely change your relationship with a run. You are not surviving a clock — you are going somewhere, and something is waiting.
The heroes are actually different. Fourteen of them, and your starting ability dictates what the rest of the run should build toward. The Sorceress plays around crits and Spark, the Shield Maiden converts Block Strength into damage, the Sage picks its own main weapon. These are not stat variations.
The meta-progression is unusually kind. Blessings bought at the Shrine are fully refundable with no penalty, which quietly removes the anxiety that defines most games in this genre. You cannot make a permanent mistake with your currency, so experimenting costs nothing.
That refundability is more important than it sounds. Most survivor-likes ask you to commit currency to a permanent upgrade tree and then live with it. This one lets you reshuffle every time you change hero.
Where it thins out
The mid-game repeats itself. Once the first two or three halls are behind you, there is a stretch where the structure has stopped surprising you and the later unlocks have not yet arrived to change it. The game is generous enough that you keep progressing through it, but it is the part people put the game down during.
The trait system is central and badly explained. Traits are chosen from a pool filtered by your level, and higher ranks do not enter that pool until you are high enough to see them. That single fact explains most of how runs feel, and the game never says it. New players reasonably conclude they are getting bad luck when they are actually seeing the system work as designed.
The item drops promise more than they deliver. They are satisfying and they matter, but anyone arriving from actual Diablo will find the equipment layer thinner than the framing suggests.
Content and where it stands now
It left Early Access with a 1.0 release in September 2024 and has kept growing since.
| Addition | What it is | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Base game | Eleven heroes, five halls, the Shrine of Blessings, items and quests | Included |
| The Bard | A hero with six abilities and six endgame artifacts | **Free**, for players who have completed the base game |
| The Boglands | A new hall with earth and decay mechanics, the Crone and Alchemist, three abilities, twelve items, six artifacts and over fifty quests | Paid DLC, unlocked after collecting eleven herbs |
The Boglands is a real expansion rather than a cosmetic pack, but it layers onto systems you need to understand first. Buy it when the base game stops surprising you, not alongside it.
How it compares
| Game | What it does that this one does not | What this one does better |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire Survivors | Faster, lighter, and far less to learn before the fun starts | Atmosphere, item drops, and heroes that genuinely play differently |
| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Mining makes movement an economic decision every few seconds | More distinct heroes, and meta-progression that never punishes you for experimenting |
| Brotato | Tighter, shorter runs with a clearer optimisation puzzle | A sense of place — the halls are somewhere, not a plane you fight on |
Who should buy it
| Buy it if | Skip it if |
|---|---|
| You want a survivor-like with atmosphere and a sense of descent | You want fast, disposable runs you can finish in ten minutes |
| You like heroes that force genuinely different builds | You dislike meta-progression grinding, even generous grinding |
| You have bounced off the genre for feeling weightless — this one has weight | You are expecting actual Diablo depth from the equipment layer |
Verdict
Halls of Torment is one of the best survivor-likes available, and the 95 percent score is deserved. The Diablo presentation is not a gimmick, the fourteen heroes produce genuinely different runs, and the refundable blessing system removes the usual anxiety around permanent currency.
It loses half a point to a mid-game that repeats itself and to a trait system that hides its most important rule. Neither is enough to change the recommendation: if you have any appetite for this genre, this is one of the two or three worth owning.
For where to start, see the beginner guide; for who to play, the characters tier list.
If you have played enough of this genre to want a build system to take apart rather than a power fantasy to watch, the Soulstone Survivors review covers the deepest one available — and the reason most people bounce off it in an hour.
