How about we make the intro section a little bit quicker today shall we. What the bloody hell is Death’s Gambit? It is another video game that tries to take the Soulsborne formula and place it into a 2D plane. Basically it is another one of them fancy souls-likes if you will. Why did I decide to play another souls-like game even though we just reviewed Mortal Shell and The Surge 2 this year? F*ck all I know. Never ask me for advice if you're in a life or death situation, which is convenient because we are currently talking about a game that deals with death. I promise you readers that I’ll try to review games that aren’t soulslike titles for the next six months after this.
Death’s Gambit is another 2D souls-like game developed by an indie studio named White Rabbit. Man, if they named it Black Crow Studios or something else it would have made more sense, but a studio named White Rabbit making an edgy game like this? Go nuts man. The two key individuals in White Rabbit driving the project forward were Jane Canellas and Alex Kubodera. Death’s Gambit began development back in 2013, two years after the release of Dark Souls and two years before Blodborne, and it wouldn’t be until 2015 that gameplay footage of Death’s Gambit would be revealed.
Jane Canellas programmed and designed the major aspects for the gameplay of Death’s Gambit, and Alex Kubodera worked on the character and world design of the game. During an interview, the two lead designers stated that Death’s Gambit took inspiration from some of their most favorite video games they played while growing up. The interconnectedness of metroidvanias like Castlevania: Symphony of The Night. The emptiness of Shadow of The Colossus. And of course the mythical world and feeling of self accomplishment from Dark Souls. They took ideas from some of the greatest games of all time and they packed it all into one short little indie game. What could go wrong with a game that combines good with good?
They even got Adult Swim Games to help publish Death’s Gambit........ wait Adult Swim has a games company. When the heck did this happen? I know Adult Swim has a few video games based on some of their shows like Rick and Morty, but when did they ever have their own game publishing department? From what information I'm reading online right now for this review it seems that Adult Swim Games has been around since 2005, but later on they focused on helping out smaller indie studios and getting their products out to the public. Think of it like Devolver Digital and how they make money on helping publish small retro styled indies. Adult Swim Games helped out with the publication of Duck Game, Jazzpunk, and Rain World. So... Adult Swim Games promised to help with the publishing of Death’s Gambit and around 2018 it finally released.
You remember how I said earlier that nothing could go wrong with the release of Death’s Gambit. Well quite a few things went wrong. The game came out two weeks after Dead Cells which is another 2D side-scroller that borrowed elements from the Dark Souls series and Castlevania. However, Dead Cells was a more ambitious title as it was an action packed roguelite that found a way to make all of it’s design ideas work together. If you haven’t played Dead Cells then I recommend doing so because it’s f*cking awesome. Critics who did end up playing Death’s Gambit were somewhat disappointed with what the end product offered. Some of the design decisions Death’s Gambit made were problematic and the critics ended up comparing it to other 2D souls-likes which were popular at the time like Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, and previously mentioned Dead Cells. The game received mixed scores across the board and White Rabbit failed to achieve what they desired for the past five years.
It’s a damn shame that this happened though, because if you ignore the glaring issues that Death’s Gambit has it is actually a good game. Really good in fact, like this is the most underrated soulslike ever released and a decently designed metroidvania. The way I ended up playing through Death’s Gambit is a mysterious story to tell. One of my closest friends Jonah is a hardcore FromSoftware fan like myself. He’s a veteran to the series and he is actually the guy who got me into Bloodborne and Dark Souls in the first place. If it weren’t for him my love for gaming wouldn’t have grown. So shouts to you good chap, I featured you in one of my reviews! Anyways, we both played all the Souls games countless times and have good knowledge of other soulslike titles. I talked to him one day about 2D souls-likes and how they are my most favorite and then he mentioned to me one that he played a while back called Death’s Gambit.
He told me that Death’s Gambit was an underrated gem and that it was one of his favorite soulslikes ever made besides Salt & Sanctuary. Him mentioning the existence of Death’s Gambit drew my attention and months later I finally decided to try it out. Having finished it once can I say that Death’s Gambit is a secret gem hiding away from the other fantastic soulslike games? Surprisingly, yes. I had a really good time with Death’s Gambit and even though it’s not one of my favorites it’s better than some of the other soulslikes out there. Today we’ll be talking about why Death’s Gambit and why it’s a title you shouldn’t skip on. So rise up from your grave and take on the duty assigned.
Story
Death’s Gambit takes place hundreds of years ago in an unallocated region known as Leydia. We see the main protagonist of the game being dragged to a burning pile of armored corpses by a giant lizard man getting ready to dispose of him. Our hero wakes up at the last moment and the lizard man decides to not throw him in with the rest of them. Our unnamed traveler is named Sorun and he has traveled to a far away kingdom in search of his mother. When he was much younger, Sorun was looked after by his mother as his father left home years ago and never returned from his trip.
Sorun’s mother cared deeply about him, but one day she signed up for the army much like her husband and journeys far away from home never to return. Sorun never saw her again and prayed to god that this time he didn’t lose the only family he had left. As Sorun grew older he learned how to wield a blade, ride a horse, and dawn the strength capable of letting him become a knight and join the army. He took whatever supplies he could and rode far away from home into battle. Alongside his comrades, Sorun fought against a new evil that showed up in the land. An immortal tyrant named Endless. She possessed ungodly powers and unleashed a terrible curse upon the land that made everyone immortal. No one could truly die and those who lost their sanity while in an immoral state soon became corrupted mindless husks. Those who did know how to use their immortality for good reasons ended up joining Endless’ forces.
All of Sorun’s comrades are cut down, but Sorun ventures forth hoping to find his mother. He is killed during battle and that is what led to the opening of the game. Sorun has become immortal after death, but he hasn’t yet become a mindless husk like everyone else. He has been brought by Death himself, the grim reaper with crow feathered wings and a giant scythe. Death explains to Sorun that Endless possesses an item that allows her to continue the immortal curse and if he locates it he can put an end to all the madness. He makes Sorun sign a contract allowing him to maintain his sanity while in an immortal state, but will remain that way until he carries out his duty. Sorun doesn’t mind what Death says to him, because he is here for one reason only. To find his mother and figure out what happened to her. He’ll make tons of unlikely friends, foes, and enemies along the way. Grow stronger by using the shards he reaps from enemies, and find out why Death chose him of all people to carry out this brutal task. Sorun will soon find out what happened to his mother.
Gameplay
Death’s Gambit is a souls-like game and by now you should know the rules. The player has a health bar and if that health bar is completely drained they get kicked back to their previous checkpoint. There is a stamina bar which dictates how many actions they can perform before they have to wait a few seconds for it to refill. Actions that use stamina include attacking , dodge rolling from attack, blocking, and jumping.
One mechanic that makes Death’s Gambit a little more unique from other soulslike titles is its ability meter. The ability meter fills up whenever the player successfully strikes an enemy, which is a lot since you’ll be constantly striking an enemy, and can be used to perform powerful attacks. These abilities don’t consume any stamina at all, are dedicated to a specific weapon type, and only take a few seconds to perform. You can be canceled out of performing that ability if you get struck by an enemy, but this is only if you try spamming them without using caution. Some of these abilities eat up enemy health really easily and they can make a difficult fight much easier. I really liked this mechanic, because it helped encourage an aggressive playstyle to make the most of your abilities. This is a soulslike afterall where the enemies are aggressive as a husky with rabies, so you want to be dealing as much damage as you can. Certain abilities will require certain stat requirements and this is where we move onto leveling up.
Whenever you kill an enemy you gain Shards which are the experience points to this game. Shards can be spent at Death Statues to upgrade your stats or at merchants to buy better equipment. If you have played Bloodborne, Dark Souls, or RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas or Divinity: Original Sin 2 then you should know how stats work. Certain stats will increase character aspects and the performance of certain types of equipment. For example I was aiming for a strength build so for a majority of the game I wielded an axe which scales in strength. By putting points into the strength category I increase the damage that my axe deals. Vitality increases your maximum health, haste speeds up the performance of spells and abilities, finesse can increase the power of finesse weapons, and endurance can increase your maximum stamina. If Shards are the equivalent of Souls or Blood Echoes does that mean I lose them upon death and have to backtrack to a previous area to retrieve them? Well not exactly.
You don’t lose Shards upon death, rather your Feathers which are the Estus Flask of this game. There are Feathers scattered across the world and by picking one up you increase the amount of times you can heal before resting at a statue. When you die you drop a Feather and have to backtrack to the place you dropped it at to retrieve it. You don’t permanently lose it when you die again before retrieving it, but you keep losing Feathers whenever you die continuously. If your Feather is in a dangerous area you don’t want to travel back to you can spend Shards at a Death Statue to retrieve them, but they will often be really expensive. Another thing Feathers can be used for is augmentation. By going to a Death Statue you can trade in some of your Feathers for a damage boost. This is another mechanic that I thought was really cool. You get to sacrifice the maximum amount of times you can heal to possibly deal more damage against a boss that is giving you a difficult time. It’s a risk-reward factor and it’s something I like seeing in video games. There are a ton of bosses scattered throughout the world each having numerous attacks and phases.
The final mechanic I’d like to mention is progressing through a boss. If you die during a boss fight you gain Shards for how far you have gotten. The farther you get into a boss fight before dying the more Shards you will get in return. This is the game's way of letting the player have an easier time and showing them that dying isn’t always a bad thing. Imagine it like Hades where you lose everything upon death besides upgrade materials, so you slowly unlock the stuff to make future runs and bosses easier. The world design of Death’s Gambit is quite big, but not big enough to be confusing. It doesn’t have the vast interconnectedness of Dark Souls or a majority of metroidvanias, but still has the design where you can open up shortcuts to make backtracking through an area less tedious. That’s all I have left to say about Death’s Gambit. It’s another soulslike that understands what made Dark Souls great and it has a few tricks that makes it a fun metroidvania. You should be able find the whereabouts of your mother.
Thoughts
Death’s Gambit isn’t an extraordinary souls-like title, but it certainly isn’t a bad one. I had a really fun time playing through the game and if it weren’t for some of the design decisions the game made I would have given it a really high review score. The pixel art for Death’s Gambit is amazing. Alex Kubodera obviously spent a lot of time detailing the environments and characters for this world. Some of the scenery and colors this game uses just made my jaw drop. This game has less of a sense of dread that Dark Souls or Blasphemous had and gave me the sense of wonder and excitement for adventure that Shadow of The Colossus had. These mysterious environments possess history for me to discover and by piecing it together I can figure out what type of world I am in.
Yet, Death’s Gambit is less focused on the history of the world and more on the player character himself, Sorun, and this is one of the very few times where I say that having a character focused story in a soulslike title is a good thing. In my Sekiro review I complained that I didn’t really care about Wolf and that too much of the game was focused on what was going on rather with the characters rather than letting me figure out the world and plot on my own. Death’s Gambit is an exception and I love how the main story is told. Sorun is just this wanderer heading into a world outside of his home. A world he has never seen before. He signs up to become a knight and he could have easily been forgotten like the rest of them when he was slain during combat. Yet he ventures not to become a hero, but for his own personal goals. He wants to find his mother, someone who ventured out wanting to become a memorable hero. We slowly figure out his mother’s fate and the horrifying truth Sorun has to reconcile with. It’s engaging, and even tough it's not perfect it’s good enough to keep you playing.
The controls were pretty tight and I liked the amount of air time Sorun had after jumping. It’s not so heavy that he is immediately dragged towards the ground, but it’s not so much that it feels like he is as light as the magical feathers he is using to patch up wounds. Death’s Gambit is a terrifically underrated game, but there are the design decisions I mentioned earlier that plague the experience. The design decisions that I mostly appreciated were mentioned already in the gameplay section, but decisions I didn’t like will be mentioned now. The most common complaint about Death’s Gambit is it’s stamina meter. It’s so low that it often runs out very quickly and a majority of your actions take up more stamina than they really need to. Mainly your dodge roll. Attacks consume a reasonable amount of stamina, but your dodge rolls take up like almost more than ⅓ of your stamina bar. So you're telling me my dodge rolls take up more stamina than my jumps? It’s weird how the character is wearing a full suit of armor and he has less time struggling to jump than rolling. Trying to upgrade your stamina bar is very difficult, because the stat that increases it doesn't give you that much at all. It poorly scales, so you may as well put your points into strength and vitality because those feel like the stats which dictate how long you last in a fight.
Combat wasn’t bad, but it lacked the sense of impact that other 2D souls-likes like Hollow Knight or Blasphemous had. It feels like my axe went straight through. It still damages the enemy, but I don't feel the weight of the axe clashing against their armor or chopping through flesh like in other soulslike. My final complaint is that the camera is too zoomed in. This is especially a problem in 2D where projectiles can be coming in off screen and you need to be able to see what is approaching up ahead. At least the environments are bright enough to show what is around you.
There are a lot of major flaws with Death's Gambit, but I do have to conclude that I like it. It’s one of the few games that does a good down to heart job transcribing the Dark Souls formula into a 2D plane. Sure it’s only like seven hours compared to something like Blasphemous which is about ten or fifthteen hours, but it is worth checking out for the art design, world, and heart provoking story. If you're worried then wait for a sale or for the developers to fix these problems as they seem pretty responsive to their community and said that Death's Gambit will be getting updates in the future. I am going to give Death’s Gambit an 8/10 for being pretty good.
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