Please Note: As of 19th July 2023 3:00 am, (UK Time) the online servers for the game have been suspended for the game's redevelopment.
Grasshopper Entertainment released a unique free-to-play game back in 2016 with Let It Die which was a Rouge-like Hack & Slash game where players went through a series of floors facing against either enemies or other players characters that got killed in their own games. This made death an actually interesting part of the game as other players who got killed show up in your game to try and take you down. It had quirky humour, a interesting set of characters including Uncle Death a skateboarding grim reaper and a great PvP system despite the game's grindy and pay-to-win nature. Super Trick Games & Gung Ho Online Entertainment attempts to bring the Hack & Slash game into the Battle Royale genre with Deathverse Let It Die which is kind of a sequel I guess to the original. Despite some of the charm that Let It Die had that made that game enjoyable Deathverse takes nearly everything good about that game and ends up with a shallow and lackluster game with mechanics that often works against itself and the player.
Being somewhat of a follow up to the events of the original Let It Die game Deathverse takes place in a form of a game show called Death Jamboree where contestants are thrown into a survival-of-the-fittest game of death and slaughter as you and other players engage PvP combat. All of this is hosted by both a fat man named Bryan Zemeckis and also a woman named QueenB who looks like a queen with gold metal parts on her body. Their dialogue and commentary that you hear during the courses of each match is really well done and they offer up plenty of humour alongside praising the kills that any players get or anytime when you get killed as well. It is a shame that Uncle Death doesn't make any kind of appearance in the game but instead you get a little robot machine Uncle D-2 which kind of acts as his sibling except not as comical as the skateboarding grim reaper himself. QueenB really steals the show with her cute looks and expressive heartwarming personality, she was so enjoyable to see on screen that on the Uncle Death youtube channel they made her into a VTuber as well.
The gameplay itself is a Battle Royale game where up to 16 players battle it out in PvP fashion where you search out other players in a massive area that grows smaller in attempt to be the last player standing. Yeah, 16 players are a little small for battle royale standards, normally battle royale games would have maybe over 50+ players in a single massive map but here it is 16 which is too small for a battle royale game. Each map is split up into 7 small areas that you go back and forth between, they have multiple parts where you can climb up & around ledges to reach higher platforms with some traps and hazards to avoid as well as avoid falling up. As the match progresses areas of the map start to get contaminated with poison and players have to move to the safe zone to avoid being killed in the poison much like in other battle royale games. When all areas are contaminated the Showdown Zone will open up and players have to enter it when it opens to keep fighting the remaining players or else, they are killed off.
Then there is combat which has a couple of problems. First of all, the game does allow you to approach combat in a couple of ways which make for open ended combat. You can either engage combat directly or by surprising your enemies by attacking them in the back, jumping up to a higher ledge to deliver a surprise attack from above or by hiding in a bush to wait for your enemies to pass you so that you surprise them when they least expect it. Attacking from above and offering surprise attacks to ambush unsuspecting players becomes key when faced with multiple players attacking at once. You can also use your robot companion Wilson to scan the area to find where enemies are hiding or where Cryptids that you can also take down as well as finding hidden items.
One of the standout things in Let It Die were the weapons that suited the post-apocalyptic setting and Deathverse Let It Die doesn't disappoint when it comes to the weapon roaster. The game has a range of different machetes, katanas, hammers, arms, buzzsaws, twin knives and lastly spears and each weapon type has a number of them in each category for you to play around with. As you play matches you can find materials scattered around the map as well as earning some depending on how you rank during each match. Materials can then be used to forge new weapons but you also need to level up some of your weapons to be able to forge more new types of weapons. Every weapon has a very unique look to them and every weapon also has their own unique skill set, this can be either one machete giving you skills that allow you to light it up on fire to deal fire damage as well as a deathblow attack where you do a powerful flame strike attack or another machete will have a different deathblow attack where you directly blow a target away. The more you use a weapon in matches it levels up and when you do max it out, you'll unlock a perk which will offer up a special ability which doesn't add much to the weapon you're using but you can get a different random perk that you might want with enough materials you currently have. Choosing what weapon that suits you does become important as so you can have what weapon skills you might the most useful, like some people say, it is all the matter of personal preference.
Now the combat system attempts to bring the Hack & Slash formula of the original Let It Die into the battle royale setting, every hit you make on a target has a fantastic and impactful knockback which makes your enemies feel every kind of hit as possible whether you slashing with a Katana or whacking with a Hammer. You have a basic attack as well as heavy attack and you have special abilities as well like a deathblow which is your main offensive attack as well as an ability which can apply some sort of temporally buff but however you have a limited number of charges to be able to use it and you have to find Power Pods scattered around the map to fill it up. You can also find Sub-Skills on the map which will offer you temporary abilities like turning invisible, throwing a stun bomb or a bounce-pad which allows you to jump up to high places. All of the abilities have a cooldown so using one of your powerful attacks at the right time can make a difference in getting a kill or getting yourself killed. Like I said before getting the upperhand on your enemies by ambushing them from behind or above is the best way to win matches because not only you'll deal a lot of damage but you can also break their guards easily. If an enemy shield is broken their Wilson robot companion becomes temporally disabled for a few seconds which leaves the target unarmed till their Wilson recovers leaving them open for a devastating Final Judgement attack which is where you perform a finishing execution move on them.
So, the combat in Deathverse would be really enjoyable but it is not. The issue is that the combat controls can be very stiff with basic attack combos not allowing for quick special attack follow ups that can cause other players to have quick recovery to counter attack you or to get away from you. Attacks can often take a while to start up before they begin to land a hit with some weapons which can also make some of them worthless as they can lead to people easily evading and countering you. This becomes a problem especially when you try to face off against multiple targets when you try to get combos in only that the system doesn't allow for it and you are leaving yourself open to taking tons of damage. The game instead forces you to make use of your shield to block attacks first so that you can counter attack and get a couple of hits in.
Now instead of a simple health system, your health is displayed as Voltage where you get Voltage from eating mushrooms, taking out Cryptid creatures or by attacking other players. You also earn GP from attacking the enemy players which getting enough also gives attack boosts making your attacks stronger. However the Voltage system is something of a double edged sword, while getting ambushes and getting plenty of hits on an enemy will allow you to max out the Voltage meter but however enemies can also do the same to you and get a few hits on you and get a portion of their health back while you perform a special attack on them get follow up with a few attacks but don't get as much health back like you should which doesn't offer up a good chance for a comeback.
The Shields can protect you from a couple of attacks before they break leaving you somewhat vulnerable when your Wilson is disabled for a few seconds but guard breaks don't have any form of consistency and often breaks its own rules. Shields are meant to protect you from special attacks that come out while a heavy attack can knock your shield down easily so you won't to evade heavy attacks as possible and I had moments where I successfully guarded against a special attack and was able to counter attack while other times the very same enemy uses the same special attack on me and breaks my shield instantly when my shield was at full charge which is utter cheap. In other words, you can block attacks with a full shield but other times the same attacks an enemy used on you break your guard instantly and that can sometimes lead to a frustrating death. You just have to guard and wait for the right opportunity to get a counter attack in and hope that you don't get countered or have other people get in on the action and surprise you for a kill that you can't prevent.
The combat gets worse when Hunters enter the map after a minute in the match has elapsed. Now this is another thing that Deathverse attempts to do differently from other Battle Royale games, they will do things to hunt the player down and also change up every day you play the game. Hunter Q will immediately chase after a player the moment she sees someone in view, Hunter B will set up infrared traps all over the map and setting one of those off will cause that Hunter to target you but you can get him off your back if you are able to attack another player in time before the Hunter executes you. Then you have Hunter M who will appear on the map for the player to take and that player will become invincible and will be given a time limit to hunt and execute a player before the time limit runs out killing you instead. A Hunter can appear randomly on any of the seven areas of the map which leads to unpredictability where they might show up and catch any player of guard. You can't fight against the Hunters because they take no damage from your attacks and you have to avoid them as much as possible but it can be annoying to get targeted and chased when you're already targeting other players and it can be near impossible to get away from them, sometimes if a Hunter is already chasing after you you are more or less screwed and might as well put the controller down because you can't escape from them quick enough because they'll always chase after you very quick. Combine that with stiff combat mechanics and animations and an inconsistent shield then you'll end up with some cheap frustrating losses.
By far the worst thing and what is the final nail in the coffin for this game is the atrocious matchmaking and how little this game offers. Now the game doesn't have the best player base and months after launch it didn't get any better, although the game includes crossplay functionality matches that can still take a while to get started. Matchmaking may either take a few seconds to find a match or it might take roughly five minutes maximum to find a match. Matches are at least quick and last about 5 to 7 minutes to complete but even with crossplay enabled it still takes a while to find matches which is not something you want in a battle royale game. Even if you get into a match, you'll likely end up with only a few players in the server and the rest of the players being AI Bots. At least with AI Bots they can help you somewhat in getting used to the core game mechanics without the unpredictability of actual players who spent a ridiculous amount of time on the game than me. I heard about the lag being really, really awful in this game as in like it lags insanely during the course of the match as well but however for me despite only having 1 or 2 game crashes, I didn't really experience any kind of major lag spikes during my sessions. You can set the server region to strictly your country to prevent any kind of lag spikes at the cost of having to wait longer for matches to start.
For a free-to-play battle royale game there really isn't much you can do. Aside from the tutorial and training areas which teach you the basics of the game all you can do is playing public Exhibition or Ranked Matches with the difference that with Ranked Matches there is a ranking system where you earn points to increase your rank by doing good in matches. You can set up private matches where you play against your friends as long as you send the lobby code to your friends so that they can join you. No matter which lobby you play in, all you get is a 16-player winner take all battle royale with no options for playing co-op in doubles, trios or group team battles which is very disappointing.
At least the game looks pretty good for a game running on Unreal Engine 4 and the environments don't look too bad and the character models look pretty decent. The highlight of the graphics goes to the weapon designs which look absolutely dope especially the arms and buzzsaw weapons that look really incredible. Some of the attack animations look really cool when you actually can see them past all of the other visual flare like seeing the constant thumbs up on the screen although the game lacks the over-the-top gore factor the original Let It Die game had with the execution attacks which explains why this game has a PEGI: 16+ rating instead of a PEGI: 18+ rating. Also, the animations with the hosts on the TV that display during the match when they commentate are very awkward and kid disturbing to watch with twitchy movement. But at least the game performs well during the gameplay especially during combat with a steady performance for both the PS4 and PS5 versions which is good optimization for the next gen and last gen platforms.
Of course, because it is a free-to-play live service online game it has to have microtransactions where players have the option of purchasing Death Metals with real money or through other kinds of promotional stuff which are used to purchase some of the skins for your characters from outfits, weapon and Wilson skins which are there as just cosmetic pieces that you can use for character customization. The skin outfits on the other hand are quite generic and some of them don't suit the game's post-apocalyptic setting. The game had a Season Pass as well where you can complete daily & weekly challenges and so on to level up the Season Pass and get awarded with more materials, killcoins and other pieces of cosmetic items.
After only being online for only a few months SuperTrick and Gung-Ho have made the decision to suspend the online services for the game for redevelopment so it is currently down and offline and currently there is no announcement of when it will be back up again. The game truly does deserve a redevelopment because some of the gameplay mechanics need some reworking, it needs options for playing doubles, trios and squads, it needs to increase the player cap per match so it could play out more like a battle royale game and most importantly it needs to sort out the online matchmaking because it is a mess and is barely able to get a lobby full of actual players.
In the current state that it is in Deathverse Let It Die doesn't make the best attempt to translate a Hack & Slash game into the battle royale from issues involving the poor online matchmaking to lackluster content on offer. You can see how fun the game could be for a few hours before the repetition sets in. While some of that creative charm that made the original game enjoyable is inside but it can't compete with the other competitive battle royale games that are being played more. Not to mention that it lacks the over-the-top humor and violence factor of the orginal Let It Die game. Unless SuperTrick and Gung-Ho get their acts together and fix the problems that this game has and improve it then consider the Death Jamboree show taken off the air and for the dev teams to literally “Let It Die”.
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Game Score: 5.5/10
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Game Title: Deathverse Let It Die
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: SuperTrick Games
Genre: Battle Royale, Hack & Slash Action
Age Rating: PEGI: 16
Release Date: 28th September 2022
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The Good Points:
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Very creative and menacing looking weapons
QueenB is an attractive hostess
The Bad Points:
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No way to play in duos, trios or squads
16 players are too small for a battle royale game
Terrible matchmaking that leads to longer waits and laggy matches
Stiff combat mechanics and animations
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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