Death's Door Review

A crow with a lightsaber, a grandma with a vase problem, and a big ass door of death.

One of the most popular trends in game development these days is to borrow from the “Soulslike” series by From Software. It’s hard to blame any developer for copying what is arguably the most proven formula in gaming today, especially when the pattern is so easily replicated. Wander a dour, lonely world populated with countless horrible creatures that are filled with souls for you to collect. Should you die along the way, everything you have earned is gone, unless you fight your way back to the point of failure. By now, this is an overly familiar trope. What was once a refreshing concept has become commonplace.

Death’s Door doesn’t work too hard to buck many of those trendy elements, and makes a rather neutral first impression. You explore a bleak world, you fight horrible things, and they most assuredly drop souls for you to collect. But there is something special about the way Death’s Door presents itself. It’s like that rare chocolate chip cookie that is exceptional, even though there isn’t a whole lot of originality in the ingredients themselves. Death’s Door is the video game equivalent of good old fashioned homemade cooking. It’s clearly a labor of love.

The use of color in Death’s Door is brilliant. You control a pure black crow holding weapons that always have a harsh, red glow against the depth of your black feathers. It makes you feel like a being that has been slightly removed from the world itself, but in a way that causes encouragement. And while there are other crows around in the form of desk workers, none of the enemies in this world quite looks or acts like you, but that only serves to strengthen your resolve to see what lies ahead. It truly does feel like one of those old school grand adventures I used to dream about when I was a kid.

The harsh glow of your lightsaber against the equally cool...uh...typewriters? Fuck it. Sure.

Death's Door is the video game equivalent of good old fashioned homemade cooking. It's clearly a labor of love.

That adventure wouldn’t mean much if the places you explored were uninteresting or poorly designed. The various areas of the world all have a unique identity to them, and exploring them is a joy if you’re patient enough. The game does very little in the way of handholding, and expects you to find the nooks and crannies as much as it expects you to find the path to progression. This isn’t the game with a compass shouting at you saying, “OVER HERE! THIS IS HOW YOU PROGRESS”. Instead, you are called to use your ability to just...go. Is there a fork in the road? Go left. Or go right, who cares. Just go forward and you will find something interesting to fight, interact with, or look at. It’s a liberating experience whenever a game trusts the player enough to let them figure it all out, and Death’s Door does a remarkable job in that regard. An adventure shouldn’t feel like a guided tour, and I never felt that this was a single time when I was playing it.

You can tell that the maker’s of Death’s Door love adventure games. One of the best parts about the Legend of Zelda series over the years is that Link has always felt grounded in the world of Hyrule, but was exceptional in a multitude of ways. Whether it is his cleverness for gadgets or proclivity towards solving puzzles, it is a series rife with moments where you feel a sense of accomplishment because you earned it. Death’s Door borrows heavily from these concepts, but in a much more muted fashion. Every area has some kind of simple puzzle, whether it’s shooting an arrow through a campfire to light a thing on fire, or figuring out how to get to the top of a room by navigating a series of ladders and balconies, you are always engaged with the experience. None of the puzzle elements are terribly challenging, though; don’t come in expecting “The Witness” level of puzzle solving. But it’s enough to still make you feel satisfied when you figure something out. Part of that satisfaction lies in the animations on display. Enemies have a sense of weight to them with how they fall in battle; the dust cloud from a perfectly placed poison bomb actually look suffocating; the swing of your sword, or the snappiness of a nocked arrow flinging into a target all serve to make Death’s Door an immensely satisfying experience to play. When it comes to creating a believable, tangible world, I legitimately believe Death’s Door is almost in a class on its own in the small indie-game space. It is one of those “you have to play it to get it” things. I promise it isn’t hyperbole when I say this is one of the more enjoyable games of its type that I have played in a long time.

Things aren’t all sunshine and roses, though. Some of the areas do overstay their welcome, and it is sometimes unclear as to what you should actually be doing. I never got truly “lost” so to speak, but there were a handful of moments where I was wondering if I was actually doing the right thing or going the right way. In theory, this should serve to strengthen my previous point about trusting the player, but this complaint is drawn from a feeling of misdirection rather than a lack of guidance. For instance, one of the areas culminates in opening a door to what you think is the climax of the encounter, only to be brought back to the hub world without any sort of formal or informal update of your progress. After wandering for a bit, I decided to go back to the area with the door to see if I missed something. Apparently a new route was opened because I went through the door, and I was then able to encounter the final boss. These moments aren’t overly common, but they are incongruent with the rest of the game’s otherwise airtight design choices.

Maybe don't tap on the glass with the five eyes? ...maybe

I promise it isn't hyperbole when I say this is one of the more enjoyable games of its type that I have played in a long time.

Progression could also be more satisfying. You have the standard options here when it comes to improving yourself (move faster, hit harder, dodge more often) and because of that it feels rather trite. Spending a single point in any one area never had the immediate impact I wanted it to, and I found myself upgrading things because that’s what you do in games like this. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that you get a rather satisfying kit of combat options in the game, ranging from standard weaponry to spells. I wanted progression to have more impact on what I was doing, because all of it was so damn cool and fun. It isn’t that any of these systems are bad or poorly integrated. They just feel standard, which is a bummer since everything else has so much more personality and heart.

The only other complaint I have is the music can sometimes grate if you have a tendency to notice shorter audio loops. Just about every song felt like it needed one or two more minutes of unique cadences to hide the fact that the songs aren’t all that long. Some areas are more egregious than others (looking at you, poison sewer area), and none of the songs are outright bad. But I definitely noticed when the loop began anew time and time again, which can distract from the overall experience.

But while things aren’t perfect, they are worthwhile. The complaints I have are ultimately minor in the face of how good the overall product is. And while it may not be the most original game you will ever play in terms of its mechanics, I think you will find a surprising amount of originality in the way it presents itself. I specifically left out a lot of details like the fabulous boss fights, or the characters you meet along the way, because I think those are best left for you to discover on your own. This is an adventure, after all, and I would be remiss if I spoiled its best bits.

Now go find your inner crow-with-a-lightsaber, and venture forth into a land unknown!