Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is a radical departure from previous games in the series. And by radical, I mean both in how it functions and just how rad these new additions are. It’s no longer just purely a Tower Defense game, it’s also a roguelike. It’s no longer confined to a time limit; that’s completely gone. I chatted with Kyle Snyder of Robot Entertainment, while also finding a way to make an interview into a review. The same type of challenge that Robot Entertainment faced when creating something new from a decade-old franchise.
Kyle Snyder, Game Director of ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap,’ has a lot to say about the new direction of the franchise
When it comes to keeping a franchise like ‘Orcs Must Die!’ interesting, what goes into planning what new features will be implemented into a sequel?
There were two angles I was considering when writing up the pitch for Orcs Must Die!
Deathtrap, “What are players asking for?” and “What did we learn from the previous
game?” For players, four-player co-op and the reintroduction of unique heroes with their
own ability sets were the top two requests. I wanted these too, so these became the
priority.
As for what we learned from OMD!3, Orcs needed more replayability outside of perfecting levels and chasing leaderboard scores. These just weren’t interesting enough for a large part of our audience. I had helped in designing a mode in OMD!3 called “Scramble.” If you go back and look at Scramble mode, you can really see a simplified version of the game loop we expanded on for OMD!D. The player would go through five levels, and after each one, they’d get an added challenge and a boon. I loved it, the audience loved it, and there was a lot of potential for replayability.
Of course, this is all also considering that OMD! has a powerful legacy. Its core is really
important to me and our audience. We were really aiming for “traditional, but evolved”
when creating this new entry.
The introduction of Roguelike elements helps keep ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap’ feeling super fresh and fun. What went into the design process of implementing this new feature?
As I mentioned, the first step was looking back at Scramble mode and seeing how we
could make it bigger and better. We wanted more fun choices, so we added a boon
selection, what we now call Threads, between each wave instead of after each level.
Then when designing the Threads themselves, it was important to me that they weren’t
all simple stat upgrades. You need some of these to progress, but the player should be
encouraged to change how they play and see the effects of their choices. So, we
designed Threads that were impactful, like tripling the size of your flip trap, and visual,
like changing the elemental effects of your War Mage’s abilities to fire.
I also wanted multiple factors being considered when players are making choices, so
there’s never an obvious choice they make every run. For instance, when choosing a
mission, the player is presented with a selection of three random maps. They could also
choose what they think is easiest or their favorite, but attached to each map is a random
challenge called a Distortion that changes with every mission selection. These
Distortions do things like double the price of floor traps or make player death more
punishing. It’s a fun choice every time — and a conversation for the team of players.
Player Choice
Finally, and probably my favorite choice the player has to make, is what to do at the end
of a mission. They can take the experience they’ve earned and head back to the Order Fortress to level up their traps and character, or they could up the stakes by gambling
half that experience and play another more challenging mission. They bring their
Threads, but it also stacks Distortions and they’re bringing their current Rift Point count
as well. It’s always a tough decision that adds some good tension.
I love all of the new characters we get to control in this, but I can’t deny that I’m partial to Sophie. How did the team come up with all of these new characters, and who are some of your personal favorites?
I’m really glad to hear about your fondness for Sophie. She’s my favorite too. It’s funny
because, while art was fully behind my pitch for this character design, some people
internally didn’t quite get it. When they think “edgy goth ninja cat,” they think something
sexier. But I thought it’d be a lot more fun to make her adorable to contrast with her
attitude, amazing voice work from Amber Lee Connors, and skill set, like summoning her
skeleton warrior Bartholomew. So, that’s how we got to a tiny, fluffy calico.
I’m also a big fan of sassy calicos in real life and had lost my senior girl, Karma, less than a year before starting this project. And now Sophie has ended up being such a popular
character during playtests — the execs had to eat a little crow on that one, all in jest.
As for the rest of the cast of War Mages, it was the first thing I tackled after writing the
pitch.
Creating Nuance
I’ve been working on Orcs Must Die! for nearly ten years now, my entire career. So,
I was ready and excited to hit the ground running designing character abilities. And for
their characterizations, well, The Order, the organization standing against the Orcs, has
a complicated past with raising War Mages out of orphans found after Orc attacks. I
wanted to create a team that had grown up in the same class of War Mages. Their
personalities are drastically different, but there’s an unavoidable fondness between
them. You’ll hear tidbits about their bonds and familiarity through voice-over throughout
the game.
Then, it was a really fun journey to bring my basic descriptions to the artists, and we
started the iteration process of bringing them to life. Concept, modeling, animation, and
effects artists all did such an amazing job making each of these characters so
thematically consistent, down to the cute and crafty War Mage Harlow painting flowers
on her exploding barrel traps. And finally, with a bit of help, I took hundreds of lines of
dialogue for each War Mage to the recording studio, where the actors blew us away. It’s
the most VO we’ve ever had in OMD!, and it’s also the best. I just gave the artists some
bullet points and the actors some goofy lines. They all created the characters.
One of the first things I noticed about ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap’ is the removal of the 30-second timer between rounds, and I’m genuinely thankful for that. Was this a controversial decision in the office, or something that needed to be done?
There was less internal resistance to this change than I had imagined. It had always
been a part of the series, but the time constraints also felt at odds with the strategic elements of the game. The player would have to rush, memorize waves, and play at the
gates for their best chance to win and hit the par time. It’s not the kind of pressure I
wanted to put on the player this time around.
Four players needing more time to communicate, the larger levels, Thread selection between waves, and the random elements that can now spawn in levels all meant we needed to give the players more time to plan. It’s also actually a buff for solo players compared to previous games because they’re not in a rush between waves to get from gate to gate. I’m glad you’re
enjoying the change.
There are still small score bonuses that reward extra experience for beating any map in
under 15 and under 30 minutes, but it’s more of a fun extra challenge instead of a
requirement.
The introduction of the Hub World was another shocking thing I wasn’t expecting. I loved being able to plan a run before jumping in. Was this the intention of the Hub World, or did you want just a central place for Heroes to hang out?
The Order Fortress hub achieves a few things for us. If you’re waiting for your friends to
join you in a lobby, we thought the fortress was a lot more fun to run around than
navigating or sitting in some menus. You can visit the NPCs to upgrade your loadout, try
out your traps in the range, or learn a thing or two from Professor Max.
Secondly, we don’t have the traditional linear campaign in this iteration, so the hub gives us a great place to do some world-building and character interactions. You’ll notice that the NPCs
have specific interaction lines with the different characters, and their idle chats give little
insight as well.
And finally, without having to worry about the precision of the trap grid and enemy paths, it gave the artists a lot of freedom to create a really beautiful environment without us designers interfering. We definitely want to keep expanding what players can do and find in the Order Fortress as we continue creating content for OMD!D.
During our multiplayer sessions, there were times we found ourselves getting overrun by these terrifying Orcs quickly. Do you have any pro-strats you want to share with our readers to help them avoid meeting the same fate?
I’d love to help! I actually started my career as a playtester on Orcs Must Die!
Unchained, so I’ve done my fair share of “orcs must dying.”
- Plan from the Rift to the gate. This first tip is going to sound a little
counterintuitive, but it works. A lot of players try to follow all the enemy paths
from their entrances to design their strategies. That’s pretty tough to do, and
especially with our larger levels, it can feel a bit overwhelming. Instead, work
backwards from the Rift, and try using your barricades to block a few larger path
openings closer to the Rift until you better understand the environment.
- Don’t stack your Brimstone. We see this all the time. Players switch to a trap in
their loadout they think is the strongest and place them right next to each other.
When an enemy is on fire, hitting another Brimstone trap resets the burn timer.
This is how most status effects work, so building this way is inefficient. Try
making some grids of different traps. This will also help you with combos, which
fill your Overdrive meter for your ultimate ability.
- Don’t chase that Kobold! This is a trick we’re playing on you. Don’t fall for it. If
you’re dealing with 50 enemies in your trap box and one little dude escapes and
books it to the Rift, let him go. In Deathtrap, you don’t need to perfect levels, so
losing that single Rift Point is better than getting distracted and losing even more
as a result. The same is true in co-op, where sometimes it’s better to let your
friend’s revive timer run out and let them respawn than dealing with the mess of
enemies around them and everyone going down.
Let The Pros In
- Use your abilities. This one, we’ve seen in playtests (even internally). And I get it,
there’s a lot going on if you’re still getting a hang of things. But we’ve given you a
set of abilities that deal damage and support traps far better than your primary
ability. Watch your cooldowns, and try to use them when you can.
- Focus support units. Traps deal a ton of damage in OMD!D. A ton. But certain
enemies can make them less effective. Watch the minimap for green icon
support units like the Orc Drummer that speeds up enemies and the Cyclops
Guardian that buffs enemy defense in a giant AoE. Use your War Mage abilities
to take these guys out while your traps deal with the other orcs.
Good luck out there!
Making a game like this must be just as fun as playing it. Any memorable stories from the development of ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap’ you’d like to share?
From the start of this project, our team has tried to be far more transparent and involved
with the OMD community. You’ll see me and some other devs in the Discord server
every day talking about the game with fans. I’ve built up a nice rapport with the
community, and I’m a bit infamous for my “leaks” in the chat. Well, I recently volunteered to do a couple of live streams of the game. The streams went great and the community was super active. But in my solo run stream, I was convinced by chat that I would give them a “leak” for every death. Then they quick-fired a question per second at me while I tried to protect the Rift.
Three deaths, and three (probably four) leaks. It made for a lot of fun moments, and now they know how to unlock Max, and that Gabriella is bringing back Arcane magic to OMD!D when she becomes playable soon after launch. I can’t wait for them to finally get their hands on the
game.
So, Is ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap’ Actually Good, or What?
To answer your question: YES, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is chaotic fun, just like the previous entries into the franchise. However, by taking plenty of new risks and offering plenty of rewards for players willing to stick it out through the difficulty spikes, there’s an extremely rewarding and satisfying game here. Visually great, extremely chaotic, and well-optimized, Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap is a great evolution for the franchise and gives us a better picture of how future games may play out. Honestly? This may be the best one yet.
The changes are noticeable right out of the gate, and most of the previous issues I had with other Orcs Must Die games have been addressed here. Sure, it’s much more difficult than previous games, but that’s half of the fun. The introduction of the roguelike elements was surprising and helped keep matches feeling far more interesting than in past Orcs Must Die! games. It’s aiming for longevity this time around, and no two matches are ever going to be the same.
Verdict: Strongly Recommended
Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap will be available on January 28, 2025, on Xbox Series X|S and Steam. Codes were provided by the publisher for the sake of review. Reviewed on PC.
The post ‘Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap’ Combines Tower Defense With Roguelikes, so We Combined a Review With an Interview appeared first on VICE.
