Undead Horde 2: Necropolis

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Undead Horde 2 is a Top-Down Action-RPG released in 2023 on PC, mobile devices, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. The follow-up to 2019’s Undead Horde, this game has a similar premise that puts you in the role of the king of the undead seeking to rebuild his ruined necropolis and raise an army (literally) to fight the humans that pillaged it.

As with the previous game, the presentation in this game makes use of pretty simple low-poly 3D visuals, but makes up for this by having players controlling an increasingly large horde of undead soldiers fighting off similarly-large hordes of enemies. The cheesiness of the voiced characters we saw from the prior game has been toned down somewhat here, making for a somewhat more straight-faced presentation, which this time fits the game’s moody soundtrack.

As for the gameplay, this game brings back the “Diablo meets Pikmin” gameplay of the prior game, but this time there have been some changes that largely fall into the realm of QoL improvements.

One change that may be divisive for players of the prior game is that this time, raising enemy corpses to join your ranks of undead warriors now no longer ties the type of troop you get to the type of enemy you raised. This is a bit disappointing in that taking down a fearsome opponent now no longer means you’ll be adding that same brute to your army, but it does give players a great deal more freedom to create their army as they see fit, and not be limited to only what bodies they can scrounge up from enemies. Not everyone is likely to appreciate this change, but I think overall it’s for the best, giving players more agency and in turn giving them better strategic control over the battlefield.

Likewise, the game has also made it less punishing for players whose armies get wiped out, necessitating a trip back to their home base to rebuild that army again. There are now frequent fast travel locations to cut down on the journey, as well as an automatic speed boost whenever players are far enough from the battle, cutting down the tedium even further. Needless to say, this makes for a marked improvement over the prior game, reducing downtime when you mess up.

In addition, you now have more options than ever for building up your home base, which provides a variety of benefits to your army while in battle, allowing you to upgrade your units or your own character’s loadout in a variety of ways.

However, while Undead Horde is definitely improved over the previous game in numerous ways, a number of disappointing omissions still persist. There’s still no respawning enemies, meaning you’re once again limited in your ability to grind up the power of your forces. You’re also still highly limited in your ability to control your units in more subtle or strategic ways. And there’s also sadly no multiplayer mode (competitive or co-op), which seems like it would be a wonderful addition to this series.

Having said all of that, while there’s definitely still room for improvement here, it’s hard to ignore the lengths Undead Horde 2 has gone to try to make this sequel even better than its predecessor, and those improvements largely succeed here. For players looking for a Diablo-style Action-RPG with minions to command, this is a solid choice well worth looking into.

tl;dr – Undead Horde 2 is a Top-Down Action-RPG that mixes elements of Diablo and Pikmin, with players taking the role of an undead king re-animating the dead to form the ranks of his growing army. This game improves on its predecessor in multiple ways, and while there’s still multiple places where this game could be improved further, overall this is a solid entry in the genre and a marked improvement over the prior game.

Grade: B+

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