Have a Nice Death review: a roguelike with diminishing returns

The magic behind Prada is the Devil’s ClothesIt is the way the film manages to strike a delicate balance between shaming an unhealthy work culture and showing compassion for its inhabitants. Intern Andy Sachs struggles against Miranda Priestley’s authoritarian clutch over a fashion magazine, only to find herself becoming more and more like Priestley. It is clear how powerful a cruel boss could be.

New roguelike Enjoy a Nice Death delves into the same ideas, with critiques of work culture and burnout — but rather than portraying a cruel boss with a proper amount of criticism, the game ends up tipping into unearned sympathy for an overworked CEO.

Developer Magic Design Studios’ protagonist is Death, the founder of Death Inc. Death is dealing with burnout, having processed too many souls into the realm of the afterlife. He had hired people to gather his dead. But, the employees went rogue and started to wreck his industry.

Death uses an area-of-effect attack in Have a Nice Death

Image by Magic Design Studios/Gearbox Publishing

At this crucial moment, you assume control over Death. Death is armed with a trusted scythe and cloak and a book with the names and addresses of the deceased. He must navigate his maze-like workplace, dealing with all his employees.

Death’s headquarters are beautiful. The procedurally generated 2D dungeons look as if they’re pulled straight out of a Disney movie (the game does often feel like a playable Pixar short). You can see the animations in a clean, dark noir style that is accented by very few colors.

Fighting mechanics are lit up neon and create a bright contrast in the grey landscape. It is an enjoyable game mechanically. The combat is responsive and slick, which makes it a joy to play. Dead Cells (whose lead designer “worked closely” with Magic Design), but feels more like a hack-and-slash. Death’s cloak can morph into additional weapons, like a gigantic hammer or a cloud of poison. Mixing a melee weapon with ranged curse was a fun way to have fun. Weapons are easy to unlock and the available storage slot in your inventory makes switching combat styles in the middle of a run easier — the act of building momentum in early runs is satisfying, rewarding, and exciting.

There are currently seven worlds (with one more planned for the game’s full 1.0 release on March 22), each with its own boss, called a Sorrow, including Waldo, a Big Boy-faced killer spider of the Toxic-Food Processing Dept., and Major Warren Pliskhan, an overzealous war general and head of the Modern Warfare Dept., among others. While the level can be tiresome with only three to four enemies per biome, there are still some challenging boss fights.

Death speaks to employees and vendors at a save space in Have a Nice Death

Image by Magic Design Studios/Gearbox Publishing

Throughout your runs, which, like in any roguelike, knock you back to the beginning upon dying (although it isn’t clear to me how Death himself dies?), you’ll encounter a variety of Sorrows. They’re stand-ins for global forces that cause destruction and end lives, and have gotten You can also productive in “processing” (read: killing) people. Death must visit his employees and have them discuss their work, before you attempt to beat them.

Roguelikes offer a way for you to explore topics such as burnout and work culture. Moving Under, Hitman World of Assassination’s Freelancer mode, and even HadesThey should see their workplaces as loops in which evil thrives.

Where can I find them? Enjoy a Nice DeathThese workplace roguelikes are where the company differs. Instead of building sympathy toward labor, play as the manager or an intern at a failed startup’s dungeons.

The focus of the article is Death Inc. without questioning his part in it. Enjoy a Nice DeathThe CEO, whether he is aware of it or not, can be seen as someone who cares. And in some ways, he is — he’s grumpy but charming. But in his role, as an overseer and exploiter of laborers, it’s hard to wish him well as he yells at his employees.

There’s a version of this game where Death recognizes his, and his company’s, exploitative practices, and thus, the tongue-in-cheek jokes scattered throughout land harder, as he comes to grips with the pain and stress he has caused. In its current form, however, Enjoy a Nice Death doesn’t strike that balance.

Death uses a laser-focused dash in Have a Nice Death

Image by Magic Design Studios/Gearbox Publishing

It is initially funny, but it quickly turns to a bittersweet humor when I meet minibosses W. Hung and the Sorrow Maxxx. These are personifications of addiction that have a syringe stuck out their backs. When I saw the Sorrow Christina Imamura (an orientalist geisha acting as natural disasters), I was shocked and shook my head. Then, the nuclear explosion animation made me rage. The branching paths to my bosses led me to avoid them.

I often return to good roguelikes, failing run after failure, because of the careful combination of narrative advancement and mechanical improvement. The development of the protagonist’s (and player’s) skill set, alongside the gradual incline in the character’s story arc, is key.

Enjoy a Nice DeathMy appreciation of the game only got better with each new discovery. The beautiful world and tight combat were captivating at the beginning — but the more I gleaned about the story and the world, the less I wanted to keep playing.

After revealing the true culprit behind the chaos at Death Inc, there will be a conclusion to the story that launches along with the full game’s release. But I’m pessimistic that the new content can make up for the existing diminishing gameplay satisfaction, and even more pessimistic that it will be able to tie a neat bow on such a messy storyline.

Although the game is gorgeous and has great battle mechanics, I find the game more interesting the more I dig. Enjoy a Nice DeathThe less I discover, the more valuable.

Enjoy a Nice Death On March 22nd, the game will release on Nintendo Switch as well as Windows PC. Gearbox Publishing gave us a pre-release code to review the game on PC. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

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