Iratus: Lord of the Dead is a different sort of take on the tale of a hero traveling down into the deep dark dungeons to battle evil. Instead you assume to role of Iratus, a great evil that had been sealed long ago by such a hero we described above. After countless years Iratus has been freed and hopes to pick up his quest for world domination where he left off. The only thing he has to do first is rebuild his armies and escape from the dark underground abyss he finds himself stuck in.

When I got to go hands on with Iratus Lord of the Dead at E3 2019 I just absolutely loved the story premise, I mean who doesn’t want to play as the bad guy at times! Iratus Lord of the Dead is a tactical gaming experience sure to delight many! Battles occur between your team of 4 monsters and up to 4 enemies. All characters are lined up front to back and the position of each character has an affect on what they can do in battle. A basic skeleton will have more effective attacks in the first two positions or a mummy will be better in the last 2 positions for example. Each move a character can make can be hovered over to see where in the positional line-up they need to be to be used and where in the enemy line-up they will hit.

There are 2 different types of damage that can be used on opponents, physical and stress. Using a physical attack will deplete an enemies vigor and once it reaches zero they die. Stress attacks can have a variety of effects on an enemy, reduce the stress gauge to 0 and an enemy in the last spot of a formation could outright flee from combat. Stress can also rarely insta-kill an enemy! There are also moves that can Buff and debuff you or opponents so knowing the right combinations of positions, attacks and support moves is very important. Iratus can also cast spells during each battle to help his minions achieve victory in fights!

After a battle is completed you are rewarded with enemy parts which you can then use to create new and potentially more powerful minions! The world map is randomly generated per floor so replays of the game will always have a different route for players to take. There are also numerous upgrades that will come into play throughout a playthrough to help strengthen Iratus and his minions. Be careful though, there are not enough points in a single game to fully upgrade every perk or rebuild all of Iratus’s former lair.

I seriously had a blast playing Iratus Lord of the Dead, It has a deep tactical depth of gameplay but it was also very approachable! After a short gameplay demonstration I was handed the controls and was quickly dispatching some dirty miners with my minions. I even got to take on one of the games first boss fights and what a challenge it was! By the time the fight was won I had lost 1 of my strongest minions and the battle as a whole had taken nearly 10 minutes! I seriously can’t wait till the game launches into early access this summer on Steam to further hone in on the deeper aspects of the gameplay. Seriously, if you love games with a ton of tactics involved keep an eye out for Iratus Lord of the Dead!