Regulars here at Rogueliker will know that I’m partial to a bit of Vampire Survivors (and games like it). One of the very best in the genre is Brotato, because it does a lot of similar things to the big VS, but it mixes up the formula, evolving it into something more focused.
God of Weapons, by developer Archmage Labs, is the next evolution of the formula. Or it’s certainly one strand of the formula’s evolution. It does so by taking the quick-fire rounds and restrictive arena design of Brotato and then injects it with a big fat dose of post-battle inventory sifting and sorting.
What is God of Weapons?
As you can see from the accompanying screenshots, God of Weapons offers classic isometric gameplay, with your character doing the usual constant sprint away from danger. It’s a deadly game of tag, then, played in a tight arena that fills with increasingly hardy monsters.
Your various attacks are made manifest by weapons that float behind you. It’s about as silly as the overall structure, and so I quite like this setup, and you can see your various weapons doing their respective things at all times, swiping this way and that, which I like, too.
The rounds are short and sweet, each one a bit more deadly than the last – it’s not long before you’re eyes are flicking between your health and the timer.
Once you’re done running, you get to the management side of things. First you get points to spend on opening up new slots in your grid-based inventory, and then you can add weapons and items to your kit. It’s a neat system, and I really enjoyed the regular change of pace it provides, although it’s a bit fussier on a controller.
Weaponised inventory management
As you progress through the game, completing certain objectives opens up new characters. This ever-expanding roster is surprisingly stacked with starting builds, and there are even sub-classes to unlock, each one with different strengths and weaknesses intended to inform a play-style or provide a specific gameplay challenge.
Not only is the roster busy, but there are also different starting weapons to choose from, plus magic items that offer passive benefits and prompt even greater care when managing that inventory during a run. In one of my last runs I had a scroll in the middle of my bag, with a series of daggers carefully arranged around it, each one getting a buff from its proximity to the magic item in question.
Weapons can be combined and levelled up, and items will often have positive and negative effects to consider as you sculpt your build. I will say that in the several hours I’ve played on PC and now on PlayStation 5, there has been plenty of gameplay variety, albeit within the confines of a relatively restrictive sub-genre of gaming.
How does it stack up?
Archmage Labs has built an arena survivors-like with a couple of rough edges, but all told I think the positives far outweigh any complaints I have about the game’s more obscure elements.
It’s a got a fairly simplistic Nintendo-lite art style, which you can see from the screenshots, but it’s a little rough around the edges, for example, at times you can see through gaps in the floor,. But this isn’t a genre where we care that much for looks, and the main thing is that the action is quite easy to parse.
I’m glad that I finally gave God of Weapons a proper look this weekend, because I’ve had it on PC for ages now and save for an hour or two spent with the game back in 2023, I’ve not given it the attention it deserves. If you like games such as Vampire Survivors and Brotato, it’s definitely worth a look, although for me it just misses out on a seat at the top table.
God of Weapons is out now on PC (Win), PS5 and Xbox Series. I bought the game myself on PC, but this weekend I played on PS5 via access kindly provided by the game’s publisher.
