Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel Review – All Hell Broke Loose

Being super popular in early access is a simple sign that the game is onto something. Through relentless support and feedback, the game evolved, added more content, and has finally reached its full release. Jotunnslayer is now live with its 1.0 update, which also means that it is ready for an official review.

Released on September 3, 2025, Jotunnslayer finally reached the 1.0 version with a brand new update and add-on. Developed by Games Farm and published by Grindstone, Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is currently available on Steam for PC. Raise your axes, as we descend into hell for our official review of Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel.

You’ll Need a Jug of Mead or Two

Jotunnslayer is a phenomenal roguelike game and probably one of the most outstanding ones we’ve played this year. The screenshots and the hype had us expecting some real gore gunrunning experience, but to our surprise, it gets even more chaotic and violent. Jotunnslayer does most of the job itself, leaving the only crucial job in your hands – making choices.

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel, at its core, is more of a choice-based game with a fusion of being real-time instead of a classic tower defense game. Your warrior is sent on a run in various realms of the Nordic Mythology, but all of it comes down to three simple steps. Survive, Complete Objectives, Summon the Jotun. And don’t take the first part for granted, or you’ll be really sad towards the final minutes of your run.

The game offers you two classes to begin with and eventually unlocks up to six unique classes with their own combat style, skills, and abilities. But you’re not alone; you are blessed with all the Nordic gods, and it’s up to you to choose whose blessing you want to prioritize.

With up to five primary casting skills, you can choose either your own special class-based skills or choose the blessings of Thor, Freya, Odin, Brokk & Sindri, Loki, Skadi, Njord, and Nidhogg. Each of these gods offers up to 4 unique casting skills and up to 6 passive skills that you can pick up with each level up. With an enormously large pool of skills to choose from, it’s wise to know what suits your playstyle the best, or constantly experience with new skills and find a new way to slay the jotun.

The game will offer you to play in four difficulties, with the fourth being an endless run format. The endless run formats have deeper mechanics, including torments. Torments, as the name suggests, simply exist to make things even harder, making hell taste and feel even more hellish than you could imagine. In addition to this, you have multiple modifier options that can be unlocked by completing normal runs under certain conditions. These modifiers are excellent for players who have already spent a lot of

Hell is Afraid of You

Imagine dropping in alone with nothing but the blessings of the gods and every demon that realm can put up against you. That’s Jotunnslayer for you. The combat of Jotunnslayer is constantly moment-to-moment. The fifteen minutes of absolute hell that you’ll be thrown into is nothing but a constant test of your sanity, adrenaline, and survival. Your level progression starts from the first enemy you take down, but the choice and skill you pick will directly reflect your survival rate in the last few minutes.

The game is designed in a format wherein you’ll have to complete 3-5 objectives depending on the difficulty level. At the same time, you’ll also have the clock running down, increasing the difficulty with each passing level. The game has this extremely fine-tuned, unbelievably well working timer that’s perfectly synced with the ratio at which the difficulty goes up to your skills procurement. The game has a rough idea of which objective you’d be chasing at a particular minute of the clock and how many levels you’d have stacked by then, and thus unleashes increasingly devastating levels of carnage upon you.

You stack skills as per your liking, but can only choose the favors of three gods at a particular run, and have to settle for passive skills for the rest. Some of my favorite abilities obviously include – Gambanteinn, Local Ragnarok, Brokk & Sindri Health Regen Rune, Thorr Evolved Sentinel, and Leviathan Evolved. But to be honest, most of the skills are great in their own way, and you just have to find the perfect combo that keeps you alive and the enemies at a distance.

The controls that you have are – movement, dash, main ability, and choices. The last two are super critical if you’re actually in the mood to clear a run.

In its essence, Jotunnslayer is a game that knows your sanity goes all in to test every bit of it, with enough carnage going on to keep you hooked through the last second on the timer.

You’re the Ragnarok

The game is extremely authentic to the Nordic culture, which adds on to an even more deeper level of immersion. The music is fine, but suits perfectly to the hundred different audios being played in any level. Fortunately, the design is well kept to make sure that you’re able to comprehend each audio individually and know which ability is going out with clean and distinctive visual and audio indicators. The hit rate is perfect, along with knockbacks, making sure the animations are never the reason for you taking damage.

While the graphics don’t do anything absolutely out of the park, it still holds up pretty well for an indie title, and in fact does more than what you ask for, now that the game holds 6 classes, five levels. And the best part? Each realm is uniquely designed to match the setting, with enemies of multiple varieties designed exclusively for their own levels. This shows that the game was aimed to make for authenticity over reusing assets just to increase gameplay time.

Overall, I absorbed zero bugs or crashes in my entire playthrough except for a file save issue, which simply wanted a game resetart. This quality and polish coming from an indie title whose core gameplay loop itself is fifty different abilities and a hundred enemies going at you at the same time is extremely commendable.

I truly believe someone at the studio asked how much hell do we want to put the players in, and all the developers in unison said “yes”.

Final Words

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is the best rouguelike we’ve played this year, that truly goes gun blazing with the gore and violent side of the Nordic culture, and puts the players in a very smartly designed progression based roguelike run that is guaranteed to have your attention until the last second on the clock. While the graphics and the OSTs are just right, this entire package at just ₹550 is unbelievable and an absolute steal deal.