Death's Door hands-on preview: The reaper calls

Acid Nerve’s Titan Souls was an exciting souls-like and one of the more impressive indie releases of the last several years. Now, the developer is once again teaming up with publisher Devolver Digital for its next game, Death’s Door, which is all about a crow that reaps souls. I had the opportunity to play a slice of Death’s Door ahead of its launch later this month.

A deadly nine to five

Death’s Door follows the story of a crow whose day job consists of reaping the souls of the dead. As one would imagine, this gig leads to some pretty wild adventures. This was immediately apparent during my time with Death’s Door. From the headquarters, players have access to different doors that will take them to different areas in the world, where they’ll collect souls and engage in combat.

While out on adventure, players will gather souls, which they can then return back to the main area with. Here, souls can be traded in for character upgrades, making them more formidable in combat. Afterwards, it’s back out into the world to collect more souls and defeat some baddies.

Knocking on Death’s Door

Death’s Door is an action game, with players roaming the land and encountering a plethora of enemies. The crow has a set of abilities that can be used to make quick work of said enemies. This includes standard melee attacks, charged attacks, and a bow and arrow for ranged combat.

Death’s Door also looks to offer a really challenging experience for players on their quest to collect souls. There’s several bosses in the game, a couple of which I got to go head-to-head with during my preview. Bosses have combat patterns, which players will need to recognize and adapt to, anticipating what they’re going to do next.

When the reaper comes

Acid Nerve is looking to deliver another exciting action game with Death’s Door. The story seems unique, with some interesting characters and an intriguing setting. The combat mechanics and progression system will aid in making Death’s Door one of the year’s best indie releases. Death's Door is set to launch on July 20 for PC and Xbox.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_