Iratus: Lord of the Dead

 PC
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. Cubed3
    Apr 24, 2020
    90
    Unfrozen's Iratus: Lord of the Dead is one of the greatest tactical rogue-likes one can enjoy right now; one that surpasses the titles it pays homage to in almost every way. The road to getting rid of anything that breaths with your necromancer is filled with a series of challenging battles, with an enormous amount of depth in the mechanics on offer, and with a heavy dose of resource management thrown in as well. The challenge will test your mettle, as mistakes are rarely accepted, and failure is part of the recipe. It suffers a bit from a lack of content, and a slight dose of repetitiveness, yet the gameplay is so much fun that you'll keep coming back to it no matter what - not to mention that the visuals are so beautiful that it makes staring at corpses and apparitions quite the enjoyable pastime.
  2. Ragequit.gr
    Apr 23, 2020
    88
    A fresh take on a familiar formula, with enough quality and new ideas to make for a great experience. Highly recommended for roguelike and Darkest Dungeon fans.
  3. Riot Pixels
    May 18, 2020
    82
    While Darkest Dungeon has more layers of complexity, turn-based combat in Iratus is just as compelling. You have to pay attention to negative effects, preempt potential threats, exploit loopholes in the game’s sophisticated rulebook and build effective combos.
  5. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jul 23, 2020
    80
    A very pleasant surprise. The game maintains great gameplay and at the same time brings nice innovations. A Darkest Dungeon, where you play as the evil ones. Give it a chance! [Issue#303]
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  6. The Indie Game Website
    Apr 22, 2020
    80
    While a lot of people will look at Iratus: Lord of the Dead as a pretender to Darkest Dungeon, it does a lot of very cool things, and – at time of review – is incredibly well balanced as a result of its time in Early Access. There’s a little bit of a learning curve for those new to the genre, but those experienced in this kind of game will feel more than at home.
  7. 4P.de
    May 5, 2020
    78
    If you’re into merciless turn based tactics like Darkest Dungeon, you will get a decent amount of entertainment out of Iratus.
  8. Jeuxvideo.com
    May 3, 2020
    75
    Quotation forthcoming.
  9. GameStar
    Apr 27, 2020
    75
    Behind the browser game aesthetics and the somewhat forced humor there’s demanding tactical combat on par with Darkest Dungeon.
  10. Screen Rant
    May 6, 2020
    70
    Iratus: Lord Of The Dead is a fun, darkly amusing dungeon crawler for those looking to bring destruction to the world rather than salvation.
  11. PC Invasion
    Apr 28, 2020
    70
    Iratus: Lord of the Dead tweaks the team tactics formula of Darkest Dungeon but cuts down on the management aspect to focus firmly on moving quickly from combat to combat. It lacks the narrative flair or emotional punch of its inspiration but makes up for it with satisfying tactical options and a balanced challenge level.
  12. Games.cz
    May 20, 2020
    60
    Iratus could have been a worthy successor to Darkest Dungeon, but is cast down into the swamps of mediocrity by its monotonous, boring battles.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 68 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 68
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 68
  3. Negative: 8 out of 68
  1. theirrelephants
    May 20, 2020
    8
    I haven't played Darkest Dungeon so I have no comparison like all the other reviews, but this was a fun, simple way to kill a dozen hours.I haven't played Darkest Dungeon so I have no comparison like all the other reviews, but this was a fun, simple way to kill a dozen hours.

    You put together a handful of troops (4 max from about ~15) and go into combat against another 4 guys. You're the titular Iratus but your undead troops do the fighting for you. Combat kind of reminded me of older wizardry rpgs, though thats a bad comparison.

    People who enjoy pain will probably enjoy the harder modes.    … Full Review »
  2. Grobeu
    May 16, 2020
    1
    Darkest Dungeon's ugly, inbred little brother. A game that tries to be slay the spire, DD and dungeon keeper yet fails miserably. This gameDarkest Dungeon's ugly, inbred little brother. A game that tries to be slay the spire, DD and dungeon keeper yet fails miserably. This game just doesn't work, is half broken and half finished. If the devs cared, the only way to explain its mediocrity is the devs where bad in the first place. The pace drags on, the battles are too long, the maps are too long, you have to invest a lot more time than in DD only to be randomly crushed once you walk in the 2nd level. Tutorial misses half of the mechanics and lets you figure it out by yourself. The game mechanics are grindy, unrewarding and repetitive (nowhere near the subtlety of DD). The UI is absolutely unintuitive, quickly annoying, incompetent and seems like it's not been tested at all (2 clicks to create a character, sure).
    You literally start the game with a character that is as useful as a doormat (dark knight, basically a 2ft tall chaos warrior in heavy armour that is weaker than your basic skeleton, IN EVERY WAY, go figure) and the only thing you can do with it is sacrify it the first chance you get and never use it again, EVER.
    All the characters have 6 skills but you'll only use 2 or 3 at best because the others are useless. The characters are so bad anyways you'll get murdered in the first 3 batlles, even dirt cheap enemies hurt you like hell. You start with peashooters, and have to play at least 30mns (and go through a ton of unintuitive UI micromanagement) to start having efficient warriors (which will get easily wiped out later on wether at lvl 10 or not). First game i ever played where the armies of the undead are bloody ****
    The buffs are indicated by a green square, but you have no idea what buff you are currently using because it's indicated NOWHERE. You might as well have 3 active buffs and you have no idea what's going on, as far as you know, you have A buff, period.
    I don't know how long the devs worked on this but so far, it feels undercooked, unbalanced, and just not well made. The ideas are there but the implementations...the devs might as well start again from 0 and understand what they are trying to do this time.
    "as good as darkest dungeon" I don't think so. The only thing this game got from darkest dungeon is RNG so unfair at some times you better have a plan B, C and D or else you just lose the 4 hours you've been playing.
    Upgrading your troops is essential but nothing is automated and you lose them very fast so you quickly spend hours increasing random stats that don't really change much in overall gameplay.
    Yeah 4 hours, because the pace is SLOW AF (no way you can have quick play sessions like in StP or DD, which were part of the appeal of the games), and this game amounts to using the same troops and same tactics all of the time until you get annihilated by over OP enemies that come out of nowhere once you pass the first boss (difficulty jumps from too easy to too hard with no steps in between).
    I just spent the 3 last days playing 6 hours a day to figure out how this game works.
    Verdict : this game works not. It's uningaging, boring, repetitive and unbalanced, and lacks work and investment from the devs. And has the nerves to compare itself to DD.
    Skip this one, don't even buy it on sale. Utter waste of time. Gets so annoying you'll feel like uninstalling it 30 hours in. Unfinished, half-baked, broken, boring garbage.
    You thought the RNG was all over the place in Slay the Spire (and it is)? Wait till you play this one.
    The devs don't get the difference between a hard game and a broken game.
    I've spent 300hrs on DD and I'm still playing it. 250hrs hours on Slay the Spire and still playing it. 1500hrs+ on Binding of Isaac and still playing it. This one I got fed up with in 30 hours.
    Skip it!    … Full Review »
  3. Halikhan
    May 7, 2020
    9
    Всё что могу написать она шикарна во всём! В отличии от Darkest Dungeon не мучает гриндом!
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