Death's Door Critic Reviews

I relished the time I spent with Death's Door. Not only was I captivated by the visual style, but the gameplay was dynamic, clever, and well-balanced.

A darkly charming adventure that poses a challenge and encourages persistence. Both whimsical and reverent, this tale of one brave crow draws inspiration from some greats to carve out its own niche.

An unforgettable lesson on coping with the immutable march of death that'll shake even the rugged individuals out there. Packing few but extraordinarily fleshed out characters, levels, story beats, and gameplay elements, Death's Door shows restraint and temperance, standing as an indisputable triumph of the top-down dungeon crawler formula. It's bursting at the seams with good writing, humour, and an eagerness to use every last bit of its 10 to 13 hours of playtime in good faith. That's the crowning achievement of Death's Door: nothing feels left out or bloated. Acid Nerve managed to deliver a perfectly balanced cup of existential dread and philosophical remedy on all accounts.

From the distinct, sprawling domains of your three primary marks, to the adorably avian way your crow tilts and juts their head around, the game never misses a moment to delight you with some new wonder, and just when you think it’s run out of surprises; whether it’s a new tune, a beautiful vignette, or a quiet moment of empathy, it’s always got something else tucked underneath its wing.

Death's Door is a well crafted Action RPG that respects its audience by offering pure quality, and the improvements over the previous game by Acid Nerve shows that the studio is on the right path to develop even more exciting titles in the future.

Death’s Door may be a game about death but it very much thrives thanks to its smart level design and rewarding combat system. You definitely feel accomplished after completing a dungeon or beating a boss – and that feeling follows you until the end. Sure to become one of your favorite games this year, Death’s Door is a spectacle to behold and a joy to play.

For the most part, Death's Door hits it out of the park and is easily a contender for indie GOTY. Fans of top-down action RPGs shouldn't hesitate to pick this one up.

Even with its grueling final boss fight, I absolutely adored every second of Death’s Door. The world developer Acid Nerve has created still feels rife with secrets I’m still yet to uncover after 10 hours with the game. Outside of a minor technical blip and a significant difficulty spike towards the end, Death’s Door is simply sensational. It may not have that AAA budget or cutting-edge super realistic graphics, but it’s jam-packed with charm, style, and challenging, rewarding action that it’s an absolute must-play this year.

Death's Door is a beautiful, refined, and digestible action-adventure with particularly stunning visual and audio design.

Death’s Door is a tremendously well-designed game, with superb production values and a tight core gameplay loop. I was immersed and impressed the whole way through, ready to rise to any challenge the game would throw at me, because I was so in love with its design and its world. You don’t have to be a fan of Zelda-style games to see the appeal of this one: Death’s Door is simply the tried and true fundamentals of game design, refined and polished to the ultimate degree.

Death’s Door crashes onto the scene stylistically with an amazingly detailed, interconnected world full to the brim with personality and secrets. The game introduces great characters that bring with them charisma and humanity as it lovingly juggles both the morbid and the beautiful sides of its narrative. With simply phenomenal sound design that lovingly accompanies and amplifies the visuals and atmosphere, Death’s Door presents one door absolutely worth knocking on.

Death's Door feels great to play, it's beautiful to look at, and the characters and world are beyond memorable – clock in and get your reap on.

Death’s Door is a must for those looking to scratch the itch of a classic Zelda dungeon-delving game, with the added bonus of impeccable combat against waves of foes in a creepy world. Secrets are plentiful enough to offset the low variety of rewards, and the cohesion of puzzle-solving and combat encounters worked terrifically to challenge me in all the right ways. While I wish the adventure didn’t end so soon, as a reaper of souls I should know: nothing lasts forever.

Death’s Door combines excellent story and lore with challenging and rewarding combat. As an action game, there’s a lot to love about the enemies faced and customization available. Story can easily take the backseat in a game like this, but the sheer concept of it all and the lore dumped on top makes the story in Death’s Door equally intriguing. Acid Nerve delivers one of the more well-rounded titles I’ve played this year with Death’s Door.

Buy it. Play it. Enjoy it. It’s as simple as the game feels, even if it challenges you more than you’d ever think it would. The more I’ve played it, the more I see every one of it’s accomplishments, with fantastic gameplay and a great choice of art style and soundtrack jewels in its crown. Death’s Door does nearly everything right for what it is, and even the shortcomings of the narrative is barely a blemish on a spectacular résumé.

Death’s Door is one of the best games released this year and will certainly be a game-of-the-year contender by the time 2021 wraps up.

Death’s Door‘s brisk and satisfying story pace allows players to soak up the adventure with efficiency and delight, never dragging on because of complicated puzzles and strenuous combat. Ultimately, though, I never wanted Death’s Door to end because this is an immensely satisfying, lovingly constructed world Acid Nerve has made. Both a fairy tale and an epic journey, it’s packed with wonder and whimsy. Anyone who has a love for gaming will recognize something they adore in Death’s Door. This universe is too good to resist and it is my sincere hope that this first taste won’t be the last.

Death’s Door is a gem of a soulslike game with a nice and meaty level of challenge and a world filled with lovable characters and loads of secrets to uncover. It may seem minor compared to most in the genre when it comes to length, clocking in at around ten to twelve hours, but it will be one memorable journey. Come for the charming little crow and the colorful cast that they meet after slicing and dicing a few dozen monsters, stay for the excellent writing and the superb tale about death. It’s all to die for.

Death's Door is amazing in many ways, but more than anything for anyone looking for a great single player experience with hours and hours of gameplay and many secrets to discover.

I honestly had a blast with Death's Door, with the only major problem I ran into being some save file problems. Admittedly, playing a pre-release version of the game could have had something to do with that. The game is not phenomenally long, sitting at around twelve or so hours, with the chance of it being even less if you have fewer issues with the somewhat unforgiving nature of the game. There’s also no difficulty scaler which may turn off some players who want a slightly less difficult playthrough. If you too like to roll on the darker side of life, or death if you will, give this game a chance!