Messhof, the studio behind Nidhogg, is back with something considerably bloodier. Blood Dungeon launches today on Steam, swapping one-on-one sword fights for hordes of monsters, automatic weapons, and enough blood to power an entire roguelike build.
The 2D bullet heaven platformer sends you running, jumping, and climbing through packed arenas while your weapons handle the attacking. There are more than 100 enemy types waiting inside, alongside nine playable characters, six survival arenas, over 100 quests, and more than 100 weapons and upgrades to unlock. That’s quite a lot waiting behind the dungeon doors.
Movement Is Just as Important as Your Weapons
Blood Dungeon may be an autoshooter, but standing around and letting your build do all the work isn’t going to get you very far. The arenas have been designed around movement, with ladders, grates, chains, walls, ceilings, and even stretches of water becoming part of the battlefield. Your job is to run, climb, duck, and weave your way around whatever is trying to kill you while your weapons gradually clear some space.
You’re going to need that mobility too. There are more than 100 different enemies, ranging from bats and centaurs to exploding eyeballs. Some can fly straight through walls, while others walk, stick, or bounce across them, so simply finding a safe corner and hoping for the best probably isn’t going to work for long.
Learning how everything moves is part of surviving it. Killing those enemies also provides something particularly useful: their blood.
Blood, Bones, and Plenty of Upgrades
Blood isn’t just there to make the dungeon look appropriately horrible. Collecting enough increases your Blood Level, allowing you to upgrade your current build as you fight through each arena. Chests hidden around the dungeon provide another source of upgrades, giving you a reason to explore rather than spending the entire run desperately circling the same patch of floor.
Bones have a different purpose. These can be taken to the wonderfully named Dogmancer, where paying the bone toll unlocks permanent upgrades that stick around beyond your current attempt.
There are more than 100 weapons and upgrades to unlock altogether, alongside over 100 quests, so there should be plenty to chase once simply surviving stops being enough.
Nine Bunkmates, Nine Ways to Survive
You won’t be heading into the dungeon with the same character every time either. Nine bunkmates can be unlocked, each bringing their own weapon and movement perks. Leggy can create climbable webs, Bug can fly, while the Skinja is built around speeding through the dungeon.
Those movement differences should be particularly important when so much of Blood Dungeon revolves around navigating the arenas rather than simply pointing a weapon toward the nearest monster. There are six unique survival arenas to unlock too, giving those different characters more places to put their abilities to work.
The Dungeon Changes Every Day
Once you’ve worked through the regular challenges, daily dungeons give you another reason to come back. Global high scores mean you can see how your latest attempt compares with everyone else, turning survival into a competition for anyone who needs something more tempting than another pile of bones.
The whole thing is accompanied by what Messhof calls a dynamic “dungeon dnb” soundtrack from Thomas Hoey, which feels pretty appropriate for something built around constantly moving while the screen fills with monsters.
Blood Dungeon looks like a very different game from the studio that gave us Nidhogg, but that frantic movement hasn’t gone anywhere. This time, there just happen to be more than 100 monsters trying to stop you.