Umair
Based on a twisted version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, 33 Immortals is Spiritfarer developer Thunder Lotus’ first take on a multiplayer game, and it’s a real bat out of hell. By seamlessly condensing the complicated beating heart of the MMORPG genre into a gauntlet of frantic but fair fights and simple roguelike progression systems, its cooperative nature is easy to admire and even easier to understand.
33 Immortals is a roguelike that casts you as an endlessly reincarnating prisoner enlisted to take down Lucifer and a handful of other biblical big shots. Dying drops you back into the Dark Woods barracks where Dante, Beatrice, and Charon regale your efforts and grant you the means to perform better on your next run.
Your job is simple: pick your perks, choose a weapon, and head into battle with 32 other players to explore a map, spend resources to help yourself or the squad, and clear 12 ‘torture chambers’ to grab power-imbuing relics. You’ll then take your spoils of war into the final battle and pray that enough of you survived the journey.
You’re free to make a start as soon as you drop into a lobby, with other players trickling in until all 33 arrive. Cliques develop naturally over time as you’re pushed to divide into teams of six. With an intuitive emote wheel with all the faces, arrows, and icons you need to communicate, you won’t have to risk a hit by typing in a text chat. The six-person teams take on torture chambers together and collect resources from monsters, chests, and breakables at pace.
Clearing a chamber grants your crew a chest (or two, if you’ve found or invested in a key) to claim a random relic offering dozens of boosts like extra damage to elite monsters, a faster dodge, a stronger basic attack, or a heal-over-time effect.
Once you’ve cleared all 12 chambers, three large-scale battles break out in different corners of the map, encouraging all remaining players (through the fear of holy fire swiftly slaughtering them) to reconvene into larger squads and defend each position. You’ll earn a powerful buff for every battle cleared, making the final fight a little easier.
Even if you typically avoid massively multiplayer scenarios, there’s little reason to worry about being dead weight. Dying won’t end the run for anyone else, and with each of the four weapon types relying on just three basic inputs, you’ll master the lot in minutes. 33 Immortals would be right at home on a handheld device.
It’s about teamwork, but no single person can derail things for everyone else. Even if you’re not putting out massive damage, just being there to trigger another player’s co-op ability, or even helping to open a big chest, is enough to make a major difference.
Outside of a few quirks, like co-op abilities being locked to fire in a certain direction or the dagger’s ability being next to useless in the final battle, the simple class system works a treat.
Slowing targets from a safe distance with the Staff of Sloth was my favorite way to play, but gambling with blocks and counters for extra damage with the hulking Sword of Justice got the old endorphins going. The Bow of Hope, which lets you recall arrows to pierce strategically grouped enemies, has its moments, too, with the Daggers of Greed playing best when you jump around and attack quickly alongside your allies to build up co-op critical strike effects.
It only takes around 30 minutes to reach the first map’s final battle, yet none of my runs ended with all 33 players remaining. With a two-strike system booting those who die twice, you’re unlikely to keep a full group for long, meaning runs can end in a futile battle with too few players to stand up to Lucifer’s punishing damage checks. Still, I kept coming back for more.
Deep down, I knew we stood little chance against the guy who kept baiting us into a ten-minute dance to the death. But I didn’t care. The journey to reach him is always engaging, with ample and easy-to-understand rewards, each boss battle is a mesmerizingly choreographed performance, and the end result is a smidge of progression that convinces you that things might be different next time.
Even my first attempt with a smaller group saw us survive everything besides a particularly mean phase of Lucifer’s repeating bag of tricks. There’s strength in numbers but still room for smaller groups of more experienced players to reap the rewards.
Like any launch-day MMO, we were all on equal footing during our brief prelaunch time with 33 Immortals. Fast forward a week after release and you’re sure to see smaller teams of battle-scarred vets taking on the underworld’s toughest challenges.
Two other maps, Purgatorio and Paradiso – each with smaller lobby sizes than the last, much harder enemies, and new bosses – are also here to aid your suffering. I barely lasted five minutes in Purgatorio after around 8 hours of play, suggesting a grind for permanent upgrades is on the cards.
Permanent growth comes from completing milestones to boost your Feat level. By leveling up, you’ll unlock extra perk slots and upgrade materials for your weapons. The milestone objectives are far from inventive, but they keep the lobby from the inevitable self-sabotage that more gimmicky objectives might incentivize.
The relic system also ties in perfectly with the straightforward combat, as no single drop is immediately better suited to a particular weapon. Every drop has its uses, so you’ll never feel short-changed, but there’s typically still a more optimal use case to discover. For example, dealing area damage with a roll is great fun for any class, but putting it to use with a ranged-focused weapon like the Staff of Sloth doesn’t make much sense.
And if you happen to have a relic that’s good for clearing waves, you can reroll it for something better suited to a boss fight before the final battle. Rolling for health over time, for example, is a great idea in the final fight where there’s otherwise no way of healing.
You can use tokens dropped by enemies to unlock new perks and cosmetics, or you can spend them to add new relics to chests. After a few good attempts, you unlock the ability to spend resources to increase your chances of finding a preferred relic, allowing you to craft a build suited to your playstyle should the stars align.
Questionable gameplay decisions that came to light during my runs – like Holy Fire wiping out a good group for little reason and there being no time to spend resources after the final torture chamber – have been addressed for launch, instilling hope that the team is ready to act on convincing suggestions for improvement.
I just about learned the intricacies of its systems during my 8-9 hours of play, and while I barely had the means to build on them given my low Feat level, I knew I wanted to keep up the grind to see it through.
The visuals don’t stand out all that much, and the music hasn’t lingered in my brain, but I’ve been unable to kick my desire to play more. It’s a quick-fire MMO that scratches the raid itch I haven’t had the time to soothe in years. And given it’s launching on Game Pass day one, or on the Epic Games Store, I’m confident it’ll find its audience in early access.
33 Immortals is so much of what I love about gaming mushed into a tight package, one I can make a tiny dent in while I wait for my partner to return home from work before inevitably recruiting them to join the fight. Should I ever try 33 Immortals on Steam Deck, it could very well consume me. And I’d welcome it with open arms.
