Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is an action-packed roguelike title from developers Games Farm and ARTillery and published by Grindstone. It launched out of early access in early September 2025 and it certainly seems like it’s fun on paper. Just watch the launch trailer below and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Now that that’s out the way, let’s dive right into what this game is actually about. And more importantly answer the question of “Is Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel worth picking up in a market that’s filled with similar titles”?
Players in Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel will take on the role of a hero that’s thrust into one of the ancient norse realms. Niflheim, Muspelheim etc. features here and each map has their own Jotunn boss enemy that you need to defeat. However, as with all things in life, things are never as easy as they seem. First you must survive entire hordes of enemies spawning to murder you.



Gameplay in Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is very similar to other survival games in its genre. If you played Vampire Survivors, you’ll be right at home here. Your character will automatically attack and you’ll have access to passive and active skills which you will upgrade slowly as you defeat enemies and gain experience points. The game starts off pretty fun with your character defeating enemies quite easily and you’ll very quickly gain access to the power of the Gods as soon as you level up.



Upon levelling, you can pick a perk of buff from one of the Gods that show up. Selecting them will then you give you a choice of three random perks/buffs. No two games in Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel will ever be the same because of this random factor and you can mix and match various perks by selecting different ones each time. It may be formulaic but if it works, it works.

If you played Vampire Survivors, you’ll be right at home here.

After breezing through the first level and finally defeating the Jotunn in Niflheim on “Normal” difficulty, you’ll unlock Muspelheim and therein lies the game’s major progression system. Each realm gets progressively more difficult and requires a different approach to survive and win based on the enemies and in-world environmental hazards.



Unlocking new characters is also tied to progressing through the realms and the game tells you what conditions need to be met to achieve certain outcomes. It’s very straightforward to be quite honest and something that would work well on Steam Deck for pick up and play gameplay while on the go.

However, after playing through multiple runs of Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel, a seemingly game-ruining problem cropped up. While at first breezing through levels is extremely fun, the 15-minute race against the clock to defeat the Jotunn becomes increasingly harder and harder to do. Especially since it feels as if your attack power really drops off the further you progress. It’s like the game continuously shifts the goalposts. Giving you a taste of new abilities and powers that decimate foes only to pull it away from you later on with tougher enemies and more problems to deal with, such as cannons and mini-boss enemies.



Therein lies the problem with Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel. As it stands right now, even with the extensive upgrading system which involves converting gold coins into skill points which can be used to upgrade your characters, the game seems as if it needs some severe balance patching to ensure that you’re not just wasting 15 minutes of your time slogging through hordes of enemies only to die to an overpowered Jotunn boss who will wipe the floor with you. This, of course, also being based on your luck of the draw in a level with perks and buffs. What starts off as rewarding becomes a repetitive chore quite quickly and the developers will need to take a good hard look at the game they are still actively working on to address this.

While at first breezing through levels is extremely fun, the 15-minute race against the clock to defeat the Jotunn becomes increasingly harder and harder to do.

There is an Endless Mode in the game too but given the sheer number of enemies you face off against and how difficult this becomes, I would recommend playing the individual levels and unlocking everything first before attempting this. There is also a game-breaking bug in the Endless Mode right now with the Steam forums awash with players reporting crashes and a lockup bug that prevents you from continuing once you hit around 40 minutes survival time.



Graphically, Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel looks fantastic with gorgeous visuals and lots and lots of flashy effects. The soundtrack is also quite enjoyable and is filled with adrenaline pumping music to keep you going while slaying the hordes. The designs of the Jotunn themselves are also very well done so it’s a shame that the gameplay sours on you so quickly.

Ultimately, Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is a decent horde survival action roguelike game that needs some balancing and bug fixing. It is still currently in development even though it launched out of Early Access on Steam so hopefully the developers can address the issues the community have raised so far. I want to like this game and recommend it because it genuinely is fun to mix and match abilities and skills and take out waves of enemies but the constantly shifting goalposts, crushing difficulty spikes and known bugs need to be rectified for me to say it’s worth spending your hard earned money on this game. Only give this game a go if you don’t mind repetitive gameplay with frustrating design choices while it’s actively being worked on.

Review code provided by Dead Good