A first look at Archmage Labs’ popular arena survival roguelike following its first jump to consoles

I have to admit, God of Weapons slipped under my radar on PC. When Ultimate Games S.A. offered a key to try the Xbox version, I took an interest right away, hoping it might scratch the same itch as Vampire Survivors. After finishing my first 20-level run, I wish I’d known about the game much sooner.

Naturally, it’s a bit unfair to call God of Weapons “Vampire Survivors in 3D.” For one thing, Vampire Survivors didn’t create its subgenre, even if it turned just about all of us into fans of the category. God of Weapons is also more than an attempt to simply recreate VS in three dimensions. Its inventory system is designed to be a bit of a puzzle all its own which has been compared to Backpack Hero which I have not played, but a trailer for the game does strongly suggest influence. Ultimately, though, if you want to play Vampire Survivors in 3D, you will want to play God of Weapons.

It won’t serve readers for me to spend a ton of time on the 2023 game’s design itself, but as a new player I do think this is a refreshing take on the arena survival roguelike. I remember when Vampire Survivors reviewers talked about the novelty of playing the game on mobile with one hand and having a snack with the other. This is novel to do on your phone, but it felt a little weird on Xbox. God of Weapons has a dash feature to get both hands involved, and I found myself using it frequently, not to mention you can make slight changes to the zoom level on the playing field if you want to adjust your focus between close combat and evaluating the overall mob.

I thing Archmage did a good job of translating the popular 2D recipe to 3D. The models and environments look great and the fast-paced gameplay is smooth and plays well. Playing got me thinking about how this is a rare category of game in which balance is the absolute last thing a player wants. The player should be a little nervous at the beginning, chipping away at growing mobs with precious few hit points and modest gear. At the end of the type of round you want to tell your friends about, you’ve landed on a loadout that is overpowered just about to the point of breaking the game. Too much time in the middle is boring, and I think God of Weapons struck a pretty good balance.

This is a matter of preference, needless to say, but the lack of blood, gore, and other mature content makes this a solid title to play on the big screen around kids of really any age. As a dad with a blog, it helps.

The Xbox port is very good without being perfect. I’ve noticed just a few issues of relatively minimal severity, but none of them has kept me from playing or enjoying the game. When the armory room unlocks, for example, I’m able to walk around and get a lot of blank pop-up labels. To be fair, I don’t really know if this one is a bug or an odd design choice.

Press material makes deliberate mention of the game’s dark visual style which I bet looks and feels great on a PC or laptop, but for me it hovers somewhere between very dark and a little too dark across a bright living room. Other opinions may differ on that.

Most fonts in the game look great. Unfortunately, the worst one matters the most. I cannot read the item prices between rounds while sitting on the couch to save my life. The designer in me objects to thin, fancy numbers here. This was an easily avoidable problem. Luckily, gold gets a bit less precious after a few rounds, and you’ll make much more difficult choices about space in your chest than gold in your…pouch, or wherever it is.

Finally, I did experience one crash to the dashboard upon trying to leave the inventory screen above and start the next floor. It only happened once, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t end my run. Not only did I get to hit Continue from the main menu and start at the correct floor, but it appeared even to save my inventory changes. I wasn’t able to reproduce this crash during my first run.

Ultimately, God of Weapons‘ bite-sized rounds and addictive gameplay make it a welcome addition on the Xbox, and I’m sure PlayStation players will feel the same in the coming months. I think a sub-$10 price point is more than fair for the studio’s focus on replayability and variation in a genre where games do inevitably go stale after a while.

I’ll be putting in more time on the game and I’ll do more posts if there’s interest.