Hands of Necromancy

I went in expecting a competent Heretic clone and came out having lost a weekend to it. Hands of Necromancy is the kind of small-team project that quietly does something the genre hasn't really tried before: it lets you transform into the enemies you fight, and uses those transformations as the actual progression backbone of the game. Become the Stone Breaker Golem to shatter cracked walls, slip through tight corridors as the Swamp Serpent, walk unharmed across lava as the Hell Burner Demon, or take to the air as the Wyvern. Each form is a key, and the world is built around that logic. It clicks in a way that Hexen's item-puzzle design never quite managed. The structure is three hub worlds, each feeding into a web of interconnected maps, all 21 of them, threaded together through portals that unlock as you find abilities and keys. The Kotaku reviewer clocked far more than the advertised seven hours on the first chapter alone, just chasing secrets, and that rings true. The level design has real verticality to it, with underground chambers, maze-like crypts, and sprawling outdoor spaces that reward slow, attentive play. The GZDoom engine handles the lighting beautifully for a 2.5D game, and the pixel art on the creature designs is genuinely lovely, particularly the bosses. The soundtrack, composed by Luke Jansen, sits in that same moodily atmospheric register Heretic fans will know well, the kind of dark ambient score that makes corridors feel like they are breathing. Where the game stumbles slightly is in its namesake mechanic. The actual necromancy, raising fallen enemies to fight for you, is delivered through a consumable item rather than a core loop. You can summon undead allies, but in the heat of busy combat it is easy to forget entirely, and the raised servants do not quite have the presence to change a fight meaningfully. Some players have noted the weapons can feel underpowered in the early game before you build up your roster of spells and transformations, and the hub-maze design drew complaints about getting lost, a tension the sequel apparently tried to resolve. These are real friction points, but they sit inside a game that otherwise understands pacing and discovery in a way that most boomer shooters do not. The team behind this is small, formed largely from veteran modders, and that shows in how intentional every weird corner of the design feels. Kotaku called it "a game so good it could have been Hexen III" and that is not hyperbole. Critics and community reviewers alike praised the magic system, the transformation mechanics, and the level craft. Steam user sentiment runs at 86 percent positive, which for a niche sub-five-dollar retro shooter is a strong signal. If you have already finished Ion Fury and Wrath: Aeon of Ruin and you are hunting for something with a bit more exploratory texture to it, Hands of Necromancy has that texture in abundance. Just accept that the necromancy is more of a vibe than a central system, and the rest will reward you.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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