Part 1 (Sep 2023) · #17 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (1:14:34)
Have a Nice Death
- Developed by
- Magic Design Studios
- Published by
- Arc Games
$24.99
Have a Nice Death is a 2D action roguelike where you play as an overworked Death, whose employees have run rampant, completely throwing off the balance of souls - and his vacation plans. In order to restore order, you'll have to grab your trusty scythe and show your employees who's boss.
Consensus
B74.9/100
Steam players85.8% positiveVery Positive10,816 reviews
Metacritic ↗81/100Users: 7.3/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈324K copies · ≈$4.7M gross
What creators say
Ranked Apr 2022 · #4 of 8 in that tierWatch the moment (0:21:37)
Ranked Jun 2023 · #11 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (0:47:25)
Ranked Apr 2025 · #1 of 8 in that tierWatch the moment (1:12:09)
What players say
A 2D side-scrolling action roguelite from Magic Design Studios in which you play an overworked Death, CEO of Death Inc., fighting rogue employees across office-themed departments with scythes, spells and curses.
Have a Nice Death is well liked but not a genre-topper: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 86% of roughly 10.8k reviews), Metacritic critics at 81 (26 reviews, Generally Favorable) and Metacritic users at a lukewarm 7.3 from only 117 ratings. Nearly everyone praises the hand-drawn art, music, dark office humour and snappy combat. The recurring complaints are brutal boss and mob damage, scarce healing, slow and stingy unlock drops, and level and enemy repetition. It spent a year in Early Access (from March 2022), hit 1.0 on PC and Switch on 22 March 2023 with the Inevitable Time Department, and reached PlayStation and Xbox in December 2023. Critics tend to compare it to Dead Cells (and Hades/Hollow Knight) and call it a strong but derivative entry; Steam's recent reviews are still 81% positive, so it retains a steady but small audience (about 91 concurrent players in the snapshot).
Players love
- Hand-drawn, muted gothic-corporate art direction with distinct, animated character designs, often compared to Hollow Knight
- Fast, precise, responsive movement and combat; some players say it plays well even with mouse and keyboard
- Dark-comedy office-culture setting with witty bosses and NPCs who trash-talk you based on how you played
- Soundtrack that mixes elevator-music and corporate-chill hub tracks with upbeat boss themes
- Large build variety: 70+ weapons and spells, cloaks (cooldown-based), and risk/reward curses that act as run-long power-ups
- Boss fights that reward pattern recognition and feel satisfying to beat
- Fast retry loop and a sense of real skill growth: players report first-difficulty runs becoming easy after practice
Common complaints
- Healing is scarce, and the grey-zone (recoverable damage) health system confuses players and is called unintuitive; one Metacritic user said they could rarely find healing items
- Bosses and even regular mobs deal huge damage, creating frustrating difficulty spikes
- Boss fights are visually cluttered: effects cover the player character, so some deaths feel cheap and artificial
- Levels and enemies repeat: maps are rearrangements of the same rooms and the enemy roster is small, so runs feel samey over time
- Combat depth is called shallow by some, mostly mashing attack with few real combos, and many in-run upgrades feel low-impact
- Weapon, spell and food unlocks drop rarely, so players never see most of the content; progression feels restrictive (IGN made a similar point about progression)
- Reported bugs: crashes/freezes, input delay and achievement-tracking issues raised on Steam forums (minor relative to other complaints in top reviews)
- Systems are explained poorly; reviewers say the UX is confusing and they never understood what half the things do
- Value is debated: top critical reviews say it may not justify $25 at full price and suggest waiting for a sale
Can feel tedious
- Dozens of failed runs before reaching the first ending; one 36-hour reviewer stopped caring about continuing the grind
- Feeling of little progress because most unlocks rarely show up, so you always feel like you just started
- Same maps and platforming sections start feeling samey; the map is simple enough that you always know where to go
- Repeating the first-floor boss fight and the rest of the boss gauntlet; some players say the game is the same down to the end
- Healing scarcity turning long runs into attrition between bosses
What's unique
- Premise that satirises work culture and burnout: Death as an overworked CEO dealing with rogue employees in corporate departments
- Hollow Knight-style movement and art in a roguelite, often described as Dead Cells with more Hollow Knight-like controls
- Curse system of risk/reward, run-long power-ups sitting alongside scythes, spells and cooldown cloaks
- Bosses that comment on your damage taken, kills and gear, making fights feel personal and funny
- Floor structure based on office departments, with a story that concludes in the 1.0 Inevitable Time Department
Players want
- Explain the systems (curses, grey health, cloaks, unlock paths) better instead of leaving players to work them out
- Improve enemy, room and level variety so floors stop feeling like reshuffled walls
- Make healing and permanent unlocks more accessible and raise drop rates for weapons and food so more of the content gets seen
- Rebalance difficulty so normal rooms and bosses are closer in challenge, with better scaling across the easy and normal modes
- Reduce boss visual clutter so the player model stays readable
- Deeper combat with more weapon interactions and combos; fix crashes and input delay
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Action RoguelikeHack and SlashSingleplayer2DFunnyAction2D PlatformerCartoonyDark HumorCartoon
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Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Have A Nice Death is a flashy, cute action roguelite with spells and abilities, which he has followed since Early Access. He loves its look, animation and moment-to-moment feel, and respects the developers for continuing to update it. His main complaint is that runs get repetitive, because you lock onto one or two good spells and stick with them. He places it in low A tier.
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