A brutal grid-based strategy game about death, loss, and always moving forward.
Some games just want you to play them. When someone knows they’re going to bother you, they dare you to move forward. Without a question, Death Howl is in the second group. When it came out on Steam in December 2025 for $19.99, 11 bit studios’ dark fantasy deck-building game was a big deal in a field that already had a lot of games in it. It says, “What if tactical card combat felt like a Souls-like trial?”
Death Howl is not a reboot but a new work of art that combines several different ideas into something that feels both familiar and surprisingly hard. In this game, the strategic structure of deck builders is mixed with the careful positioning of grid-based tactics and the punishing checkpoint systems that made the Souls-like genre famous. Goth-style runs aren’t what you get here; instead, you get something slower, heavier, and much more precise.
When the story takes place, it’s almost 6,000 years ago in the woods of Scandinavia.
As Ro, a sad mother whose son dies in her arms, you play the part. She can’t accept that he is gone, so she does illegal shamanic practices to get into the spirit world and try to bring him back before his soul goes to a place where it can’t be reached.
There is a lot of sadness, myth, and mystery in the story. The spirit world is more than just a background for Ro’s sadness. There are strange beings all over the land. Some are willing to help, but many are openly hostile. The story relies more on subtle clues from the surroundings than on long explanations. There won’t be a lot of story dumps or dramatic cutscenes that explain everything. You move through creepy biomes that whisper their secrets to you instead of shouting them.
Sometimes it seems like the world is trying to be quiet. You might wonder: Is the secret deep and planned, or is it just not fully explored? The answer might depend on how much you like putting together puzzles yourself. There is emotional weight, but the story focuses more on mood than on being clear.
In Death Howl, battles take place on a grid, and a deck of cards powers them. Your action points, or power, control both how you move and what you attack. It takes mana to walk on the battlefield every square. Mana is also used up by every card you play. In other words, where you stand is just as important as picking the right card.
You start with a small deck of simple cards.
It may work at first to throw rocks and do simple moves, but it quickly becomes clear that these are not enough to deal with the spirit realm’s deadlier residents. You get crafting supplies and something called “death howls” as you kill enemies. In some difficult role-playing game systems, these work like souls.
There are about 160 cards spread out across five different worlds. Each realm adds cards and rules that are unique to that area. But there is a catch: cards that are only valid in a certain area cost more to use when taken outside of that area. This means you have to make a lot of different decks instead of focusing on one main strategy for the whole game.
You can use totems and skill trees in addition to cards. Totems can change things in strong ways, like dealing more damage on the first turn or giving you more mana every round for a certain price. Unlocking skill trees with resources gives you powerful benefits, such as the ability to get cards based on the abilities of enemies you’ve beaten. The processes are very tightly connected, so you have to keep looking at your build.
The battle takes place on a small grid.
There are different places for spirits, and each one acts in a different way. Some of them move forward in straight lines. Others like strikes from a distance. Some depend on defense or poison. You need to figure out what they want and then act accordingly.
Cards are rarely just buttons that let you attack. Many of them have positional requirements or extra effects that depend on when they are played. Some require you to get rid of other cards. Others change an enemy’s state, knock them back, or break through defenses. Every step must be carefully thought out because it costs mana to move. You could get stuck without enough tools to defend yourself if you make a mistake.
There are checkpoints in sacred woods. Resting at one heal you, but it also brings back enemies in the area. Death Howls fall to the ground if you fall in a fight while carrying them. You only have a certain number of turns to get them back before they disappear. It gets even worse if an enemy gets there first; that enemy gets stronger. This mechanic makes every meeting more tense.
Of course, there are some problems. Sometimes the pace feels slow. This isn’t a roguelike where you can start over quickly. If you want to try out a new plan, you have to go through the map all over again and fight enemies that have come back to life. At first, this may feel like it’s being said over and over again. The learning curve is steep, and the game doesn’t give you much help with tutorials. The first few hours might be hard if you don’t know much about deck builders, strategy grids, or games like Souls.
Is that level of energy fun or tiring? That depends on how much you like failing over and over again to learn from your mistakes.
In Death Howl, you move forward by using death howls and creating materials.
You carry the death howls of enemies you’ve killed until you reach a holy grove. When they rest, they change into a different resource that can be used to gain skill tree perks.
To make new cards, you need to mix death howls with certain items you can find in the world. As you go deeper into new biomes, the materials get better, which lets you get stronger cards. But each new realm feels like a soft reset because of the rules that are specific to that realm and the fact that mana costs are going up outside of home areas.
Finishing the whole experience could take anywhere from 25 to 50 hours, based on how much grinding you do. Most of that time is spent fighting the same enemies over and over in the same zones to get enough resources for making and upgrading.
This grinding is not happening by accident. It’s built into the building. Some players may enjoy the slow buildup of power and the planned planning for boss fights that are harder. Some people might find the repetition boring. If you like moving forward all the time without going backwards, the organization might be hard for you to handle.
Pixel art makes Death Howl stand out in terms of how it looks. The art style uses soft yellows, cold blues, and forest greens to make a washed, almost fairy look. The spirit world looks and feels like a sad, illustrated folk tale.
The settings are influenced by Scandinavian folklore, and biomes are different enough to keep things interesting to look at, but long backtracking can make some scenes feel like they’ve been used before. On PC, there aren’t many graphical settings or ways to make the game your own, but the gameplay is stable and runs smoothly even on older hardware.
The character sprites, card illustrations, and details about the surroundings all work together to make the atmosphere feel complete.
It’s not flashy like current AAA cars, but it is unique and easy to remember. The dramatic tone is strengthened by the sound design. The music is simple but heavy, and quiet and background noise are often used to build tension. The music doesn’t get in the way of the fight, but it adds a hint of fear to it.
Ro’s voice work gives her feelings more weight. Her shaky voice in battle shows how desperate and determined she is. Sounds of enemies and the surroundings make immersion stronger, giving the spirit world a scary vibe.
The music goes really well with the pixel art. It fits with the dark dream theme without getting in the way. The result as a whole is creepy rather than loud.
Death Howl is a well-thought-out game that knows what it wants to be. There is a mix of deck-building strategy, grid-based tactics, and punishments like in Souls that makes the game feel unified rather than chaotic. The combat method is well-thought-out and has many levels. The progression methods encourage people to try new things. There is a strong and steady climate.
But not everyone can do it. The speed is slow. It’s really hard. The area deck limits can make things feel limited. Most of the time, you have to figure things out on your own because there aren’t any in-depth lessons.
This might not be the place for you if you want fast roguelike runs where you can start over right away.
But this game is great if you like slowly getting the hang of a complicated system, getting used to tough fights, and making the most of every card and moving point.
Death Howl is not holding your hand. It gives you a deck, drops you in a scary forest, and tells you to stay alive. And when you finally beat a tough fight by positioning yourself well and planning ahead, the feeling of joy is real.
It is not important to know if Death Howl is good at what it does. It’s great for tactical depth and mood. The real question is whether you are ready to accept its slow pace and tough grind. You can either go into the spirit world and go through its trials, or the fire in the holy grove will make you not want to leave.
