Over ten years ago, I remember playing Orcs Must Die! and thinking it was a fun twist on the standard tower defense formula. Since then, the series has grown and received a roguelite spin-off game, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. Featuring a mix of roguelite elements, four-player co-op, and a slew of player/map modifiers that keep every game fresh and interesting. But as Robot Entertainment pushes the boundaries of their comfort zone, so too do they push the technical boundaries of their engine.
Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap
Developer: Robot Entertainment
Price: $29.99
Platform: PC, PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X|S
The Orcs Must Die! formula is easy to understand, allowing players to just jump right in and begin playing. Pick your traps, pick your war mage, and pick a modifier to start your run. Once the run starts, you’re placed on a map and shown which way the orcs will come next round. It’s up to you to place traps and barricades to prevent them from getting to the crystal.
What you can take with you into the game are the traps, the trap upgrades, and an upgrade tree that’s available for each war mage, along with a general upgrade tree. You’ll acquire skulls throughout your run of Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap and can use those skulls for upgrades. You’ll also be given a limited currency that allows for the unlocking of new traps.
It doesn’t take very long to unlock all of the traps, but it’ll take a while to upgrade all of them or dump points into the skill trees. More power for your war mage means you can take on higher difficulties, which adds to your skull multiplier. At the end of every round, you’re given a thread to choose from that applies to your trap build, war mage, or a somewhat general application.
You’ll receive a new thread between rounds, and after 6 rounds, the map will end, and the player will choose a modifier for the next round. Things like spawning a new type of enemy, enemies are no longer worth rune coins, your currency for buying traps, or boss encounters. Boss encounters are good for moving along if you’re just trying to get further into the run, as they’re a single wave. Otherwise, you’re waiting for six whole waves.
Orcs Must Die!’s formula is built on a difficulty curve where, if you’re playing on the right difficulty for your skill level, the traps do just a little enough damage to keep you from sitting back and relaxing during the wave. This seems to wholly depend on the level, but for the most part, that seems to be true.
The amount of traps you’re allowed to bring into a level and the amount of barricades you can place is wholly based on the amount of players in the game. If you’re playing solo, you have all the barricades to yourself. However, if you’re playing with friends, barricades are a little more sparse and require cooperation in setting up a maze. Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap does a pretty good job at understanding what makes tower defense interesting.
War mages are varied, allowing for a decent diversity of gameplay when playing. This is especially true if you’re playing co-op and have some folks who know what they’re doing with their chosen war mage. Harlow can place boom barrels, exploding barrels, wherever she wants, and her dragonfly companion can be placed to guard an area temporarily. Kalos uses a giant hammer and can leap into battle with a powerful pounce or place a trap that grows berries to restore health for war mages..
There’s enough variety here that allow for players to have new experiences and change things on every run. It helps that the levels are plentiful and can change on revisits. Gnomes have large platforms attached to hot air balloons, allowing you to place ceiling traps around various levels, and they won’t always be in the same spot when you revisit a level. Likewise, the crystal can be placed in multiple different locations, meaning each level doesn’t have a definitive best maze.
In fact, meta is one of the interesting things about Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. Playing online shows a mix of clueless players and players who believe they have the mazing and trapping down pat. Solar Prisms, a floor trap that shoots a short laser at nearby enemies, seems to be the primary trap. It can be placed anywhere because it doesn’t block orcs from progressing throughout the maze. There are also threads that increase its damage considerably and allow it to attack more than one orc at a time.
Even still, the traps are varied enough that you can play around with them and find out what works best for you and your team. I was primarily teaming up with groups that had floor traps covered, so I filled up most of my slots with wall and ceiling traps. There’s fun to be had in both solo play and with a group dynamic.
My biggest issues with Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is the quality of life and possible engine limitations that prevent this game from achieving a more modern and widespread audience.
One considerably poor quality of life decision is the lack of matchmaking. Instead, you choose a region from a list and attempt to join lobbies based on who is hosting an open game. While I never struggled to find a lobby for too long, most of the people with open lobbies are AFK or doing something and may not even be aware that their game is open to the public.
I imagine the choice not to add matchmaking is to make playing co-op more intentional, hoping that players will be more invested in the game if they have to seek out a new one. This can be an issue as players can sell others traps and barricades, without warning. Likewise, the tutorial is just a series of videos that players can easily skip. Multiple times, I’ve had traps sold off by malicious partners or entire pathways barricaded, a tower defense no-no, by clueless players.
Since Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is run-based; there may be a hefty number of waves before you return to the fortress. If you’re running a co-op game and someone drops out, there’s no recourse. The number of barricades remains, regardless of the player number dropping, and selling off the dropped player’s traps does not return coin to anyone remaining. And if that’s not annoying enough, between waves, you have to hold a button to send the next wave, with a 30-second countdown that can be skipped if all players hold that button.
If a player drops, you’re waiting that full 30 seconds, no matter how many players are ready.
The Final Word
Regardless of the multiplayer woes I faced, having a small group that played together regularly kept the game fun and fresh. If you have a reliable friend or friends who can play with you, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is a very fun game. If not, it can still be fun for a solo player, but a lot of the magic from co-op, one of the major draws to the game, is completely lost.Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is a lot of fun despite the massively overlooked quality-of-life features that are missing from the game. A few small updates could really put a shine on this otherwise flawed gem.
MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
