Orcs Must Die 3 2 Player

[Lorin Cupples]

Themeat of the game is the tower-defense/third-person shooting hybrid gameplay that franchise fans have come to love. Players are given access to a series of hallways. A gate on one end will soon be overwhelmed with orcs. A portal on the other end must be protected at all costs. The player must set up traps in the hallway to take out as many orcs as possible once they come crashing through the gate, and then clean up the leftovers with a variety of ranged weapons.

The campaign is made up of 18 maps. That may not sound like a lot, but is actually enough to keep you busy for quite some time, when you consider that each map has between six and eight waves of baddies to clear. It took me about 10 or 11 hours to work my way to the end of the game, though I imagine that more skilled players could wrap things up a little quicker.

Things start out simple, but quickly become mind-bendingly complicated, asking players to defend their portal against orcs coming through multiple entry points, from a variety of angles. Various enemy types, with different power sets and elemental resistances, add to the challenge.

Luckily, the good far outweighs the bad. The game looks and controls great. Everything about how Orcs Must Die! 3 works is communicated in a few quick instructional screens with text and a few arrows. There is next to no learning curve, as the controls are intuitive and the flow of the game is almost magically easy to figure out. New traps need to be tried out to see what they really do, and part of the fun is figuring out how everything works together. Everything here is honed down to a fine shine, polished and delightful.

Developer Robot Entertainment has announced Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, a new entry in its popular Orcs Must Die! series of horde-based action games. Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap will be released on PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

First released in 2012 on PC and the Xbox 360, the Orcs Must Die! series caught players' attention thanks to its unique mix of action combat and strategic tower defense gameplay. In the games, player-controlled War Mages defend magical rifts against seemingly endless hordes of hostile orcs. Using weapons and magical powers, they can fight in direct combat but can also set up elaborate and deadly gauntlets of traps and defenses to hold the line against the orcs. The most recent game in the series, Orcs Must Die! 3, first launched as a timed Google Stadia exclusive and joined the Xbox Game Pass library in April 2024.

Now, four years after the release of the previous game, Robot Entertainment is working on a new entry called Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. According to the developer's announcement and accompanying trailer, the game once again features players in the role of War Mages fighting against the orc legions. It'll debut in 2025 on Xbox Series X/S and on PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam. As a title with integral co-op support, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap may attract the growing contingent of co-op game fans on Steam.

The Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap reveal trailer focuses on the different abilities the playable War Mages can bring to the table when it comes to slaughtering orcs as a team. After setting up a trap gauntlet, the War Mage team goes to work on thinning out the crowd of foes. They unleash magical weapons like lightning blunderbusses and use mechanized defenses to defat enemies with fire, lightning, and razor-sharp saw blades. The War Mages themselves also have abilities, like a spell that clones the player to improve their volume of fire, or a War Mage with a flying leap that evokes images of a Fortnite shockwave hammer attack.

To keep the experience fresh in a series that is almost 13 years old, Robot Entertainment will also incorporate a number of improvements to the familiar Orcs Must Die! series gameplay when it launches Deathtrap. It will expand the selection of playable levels and use "Rogue-lite Build Options" to improve character progression. Randomized buffs and debuffs will also add a sense of variety to every run, potentially catapulting Deathtrap into the ranks of the best co-op roguelites, if it proves successful. Alongside four-player co-op support, the game will also dynamically adjust the challenge and balance depending on whether players are playing solo or as a full team.

Though the studio didn't set a specific release date for Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, the announcement was met with fanfare from veteran players of the series, who appreciated its unique mix of action combat and tower defense gameplay mechanics.

Let me preface this review by saying that I was not a long time Orcs Must Die player prior to my chance to play Unchained. I had the opportunity to go out to Robot Entertainment and play Unchained for a full day prior to its launch, and have spent the better part of the week since my return playing the beta, because that?s how hooked I am. I will freely admit that Orcs Must Die: Unchained (Hereafter referred to as OMD:U) was not on my radar prior to this review, so I was going into this as close to blind as I could be. I remember playing the original OMB back in the day, but couldn?t tell you a thing about it. After really getting into Unchained however, I can?t help but feel regret for not having the chance to get into it more in its previous iterations. OMD:U is fantastic! I have never played a game where you can actually see and feel the passion that the development team has for their game and gaming as a whole more than this one, and it pays off.

OMD:U takes the basic approach to tower defense games, adds in a deeply thought out action element with a splash of MOBA ideology and mixes it all together to devastating effect. Most games that try to balance that many elements run the risk of losing their identity, but OMD:U knows exactly what it is. You play as a hero with one central goal, kill orcs. Well, orcs, giants, goblins and anything else the game throws at you. This is done a number of ways, from traps and environmental hazards to your personal weapons and hero abilities. Each level finds you defending a rift from the rampaging hordes of enemies, either by yourself or with friends. Enemies scale based on how many players you have, so difficulty is consistent regardless of how many people you have with you.

The best word I can use to describe OMD:U is ?fun?. There is no part of this game that feels like a chore, or the typical grind you get from other similar titles. The prologue is full of wise-cracks and humor while also managing to teach you literally everything you need to have a grasp on to be successful. The starting hero that you play this with is a balanced, ranged character. There are two main classes of character, ranged and melee. Each play?s different and has deep subsets that you can really get into with time. Healers, tanks, DPS and CC are all viable play options, you just have to learn the heroes and figure out who fits where. OMD:U will launch with 16 playable heroes, three of which are available for free right away.

If that last sentence gave you pause, I completely understand. For those that don?t know, OMD:U is a free to play game. That has become a very contentious phrase among gamers in the last few years, and for good reason. For every hidden gem in the free to play genre there are 99 examples of why it sucks and is designed to take advantage of the compulsive gamblers and gamers that don?t know how to manage their funds. I personally have a bad taste and a good bit of bad will toward a lot of free to play games and the micro-transactions that inevitably accompany them. OMD:U however is the true exception. In all of my time with this game thus far, I have at no point felt the need to spend my money to progress the game. Everything that can be purchased that relates to gameplay is able to be unlocked through gameplay. The only thing I will spend money on are vanity items that I choose to purchase because I think they look cool and feel almost like I am enjoying the game so much that I owe it to the developers to spend some money.

The guys at Robot said something interesting, and I am paraphrasing, but the general idea was to be generous, care about your players and your fans, and let the success follow. Make this a game that everyone can truly play and be successful at for free and offer fun, cool things for purchase to make it financially viable after you take care of your players. These are all gamers, these are all passionate people who care about YOU and the experience you are able to have playing their game. This is evident in every bit of OMD:U. No company keeps a game in beta for as long as they have without caring. They could have released a short beta, listened to feedback and launched right after that but they didn?t. They have tweaked certain things and drastically changed others, all in the name of making a great game, which they succeeded at. This is not a ?freemium? game. This is a great game that just happens to cost nothing to play.

Let?s talk about content and game modes. OMD:U consists of two main modes, Survival and Sabotage. Survival is your basic mode, able to be played in single player or in three player co-op. If you are familiar with any other Orcs Must Die games, this will be familiar to you. The three player co-op is what really makes OMD:U?s take on this mode unique and enjoyable. Coordination among teammates to pull off a near perfect defense is an absolute highlight of this mode, and of the game in general. Difficulty increases with your level and with the number of players, so it is always a challenge, but also always fair.

Sabotage is where OMD:U really makes a new name for itself. This is a unique mode where you and two other players work to defend your rift from the enemy, same as survival, but now another team of three is actively trying to aid the orcs in getting through your portal. While they are doing this however, you are also trying to aid their orcs through. Confused yet? I was at first too, but soon came to understand and really enjoy this mode. Each team is on their own map, and you never actually see your opponent. At the beginning of each round you draw your consumable cards, which are the cards you use to hinder the other team. This can range from a wave of orcs to a mana drain spell that cripples your opponent temporarily. Learning how and when to use these consumables means the difference between success and failure in Sabotage. This mode manages to stay both competitive and fun, even when I was losing I was thoroughly enjoying myself. At no point did I feel the competition outweigh the enjoyment, and I am usually the most competitive person around. OMD:U manages to make you feel like a winner, whether your team actually wins or not.

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