Necropolis: The roguelike, co-op Dark Souls clone you never knew you needed

This big-eyed pyramid dude watches over your progress in the Necropolis and doles out sarcastic commentary after you complete every level. He also gives you perks on occasion.

Credit: Harebrained Schemes

KIRKLAND, Wash.—As I made my way out of Harebrained Studios’ modest, Seattle-area office on a gray June afternoon, I heard a shout: “Hold that elevator!”

Studio co-founder Mitch Gitelman was running in my direction, the way someone might dash if a visitor left a wallet or set of keys behind, but it wasn’t that. “Now do you see why we left permadeath in our multiplayer mode?”

You’re stopping the elevator for that question? Actually, what sounded like a generic, nerdily phrased exclamation was pretty important in this case. An hour earlier, Gitelman had sat me down with my second-ever demo of Necropolis, a Dark Souls-inspired dungeon crawler, and I went into that playtest with raised eyebrows and low expectations. The single-player demo I’d played at a press event in Santa Monica a few weeks prior was fine enough, and I asked for a studio visit and a little more gameplay, having not been entirely sold by my first session. I thought to myself, maybe I’d write the game up soon, but certainly not during my busy E3 schedule.

By the end, I found myself clearing my figurative table and running behind on other deadlines, just for Necropolis. Folks, a roguelike take on Dark Souls exists—and its must-buy potential hinges entirely on its stellar multiplayer mode, which Harebrained was kind enough to premiere first and exclusively to Ars Technica. The multiplayer shines for many reasons, but Gitelman is correct: the biggest one might be the one that looked worst on paper. When you play this game with friends, your most dangerous obstacles will be the very people you’re counting on to survive.

“We do whatever the f— we want”

So why is a company with a mouse-driven, strategy-RPG pedigree (Shadowrun Returns, Battletech) and tabletop expertise (Golem Arcana) dipping its toes into something like a procedurally generated online slasher?

“We call ourselves ‘Harebrained’ for a reason,” Gitelman told Ars earlier in our studio visit. “The rule here is, we do whatever the fuck we want, and that’s that. We’re not going to be constrained by anything except for money.”

As development on the first Shadowrun Returns project began to wrap in 2013, Gitelman and Harebrained founder Jordan Weisman began soliciting pitches with that one constraint in mind.  Necropolis won out with a basic pitch: “What if Dark Souls and Spelunky had a baby that tried to kill you over and over?”

Time to mess some ghost knights up.

Time to mess some ghost knights up.

These baddies have a spinning electricity attack, and it’s not fun to deal with.

These baddies have a spinning electricity attack, and it’s not fun to deal with.

Your starting arsenal is pretty wimpy.

Your starting arsenal is pretty wimpy.

These baddies have a spinning electricity attack, and it’s not fun to deal with.

Your starting arsenal is pretty wimpy.

Armor is hard to come by, but it usually looks pretty sweet.

Let’s roll.

I’ve yet to face this creature in the Necropolis, and I’m not sure that I want to.

Not every potion is created equal.

Special attack on a glowing spider.

The game, which Gitelman insists is the near-final build, sees players awaken as jagged, polygonal people wearing cloaks and carrying a basic sword and shield. They’re in a mysterious tomb and are told to fight their way to its bottom because… eh, why not? A different silly explanation for your journey appears every time you play, and the game’s sarcastic streak runs through all of its text prompts, which usually poke fun at fantasy cliches or make dark jokes about prior warriors’ untimely demises.

Controls should look familiar to any Dark Souls fan, as they’re nearly identical—quick and fierce attack buttons; quick and fierce buttons for the defensive hand; and an expected array of jump, dodge, and quick-item taps. Every action beyond basic movement costs a little of players’ “stamina” energy bar—the most costly of those being an area-of-effect attack that is triggered by holding the “fierce” button for a significant amount of time. Those attacks, which see players jump and swing wildly around to cause massive damage, represent the game’s first major stray from the Souls formula, along with the fact that your every action will deplete your stamina bar’s maximum amount.

Eating food or using items will push your stamina bar’s max back up, and other items restore health, offer buffs, and do plenty of other weird things. The game is loaded with randomized potions and foods, and players can craft their own items by picking up dropped enemies’ loot and discovering recipes (or buying them from the game’s occasional vendors).

The other big difference from the Souls world: fully procedural levels. Harebrained decided to make its Necropolis fully randomized because they wanted a Souls-like game where permadeath was a primary feature—meaning, instead of mastering pre-defined levels and monster placement and seeking out restorative “bonfires,” players had to prepare for random, increasingly difficult chaos every time they died. Still, players accumulate a currency of special “tokens” that carries over from session to session, which can be used to purchase “tomes” that unlock certain power-ups. Those tokens can also be blown to unlock certain rare treasure chests—which could contain valuable armor or weapons, or just junk.

Or you may luck out and find great weapons or armor randomly dropped by foes; in my playthroughs, I’ve found quick-strike daggers, flaming axes, ice hammers, electric staves, and even a burning crossbow. But like in any good roguelike, dying in Necropolis hurts the worst when you’ve finally found a dreamy, high-powered item, tuned to the speed and attack motions of your dreams, only to get clobbered by a slew of super-spiders.

A complete run of the game contains seven levels, each larger and tougher than the last, which are all made of pre-built parts that fit together like a neat jigsaw puzzle. The game’s opening levels are total snoozers—all flat-floored caves with easy-to-track enemies—but later levels introduce some incredible 3D layouts, full of branching paths, high-up vistas, and beautiful design that gets a lot of mileage out of the Unity-powered engine’s impressive draw distance.

The job’s more fun with friends

Harebrained was kind enough to share some of its early, pre-release concept art for Necropolis with Ars.

Harebrained was kind enough to share some of its early, pre-release concept art for Necropolis with Ars.

The style of the game’s villains appears to have been retained from concept art to final, playable game.

The style of the game’s villains appears to have been retained from concept art to final, playable game.

Harebrained was kind enough to share some of its early, pre-release concept art for Necropolis with Ars.

The style of the game’s villains appears to have been retained from concept art to final, playable game.

They somehow managed to make this concept truly procedural. Good stuff.

They somehow managed to make this concept truly procedural. Good stuff.

A little more cool art.

A little more cool art.

They somehow managed to make this concept truly procedural. Good stuff.

A little more cool art.

But, you know, Souls games. You may have played them to death—and swear yourself a From Software devotee, uninterested in any imitations—or you may turn your nose up at the games’ brutal difficulty. What’s Necropolis going to do for you? In a word… or, you know, five: co-op with friendly fire enabled.

Roguelikes and Souls games alike support multiplayer in various ways, but neither genre has had a standout, built-for-multiplayer gem, and Necropolis knocks its offering out of the park in its first go. The crazy thing is, Harebrained admits that the co-op play wasn’t even supposed to be in the game. “Late in development, we said, I wonder what this would be like in co-op,” Gitelman said to Ars. “Someone just hacked it in just to see what it’d be like. And they left friendly fire on.” Gitelman tapped the table. “I said, ‘We gotta ship that.’”

When I asked why he did so, the affable Gitelman suddenly and dramatically changed in tenor. “Because it’s fun!” he said with an intense stare. “Because that is our job.”

This was before I’d sampled the game’s co-op offering, wary of any permadeath roguelike experience in which my teammates could kill me, so I didn’t understand the passion he expressed. An hour later, I got it. The co-op mode works by dumping more foes with more HP into an average gameplay session, and players can drop in and drop out of sessions at any time with the game’s enemy math adjusting accordingly. Even if you’re in the sixth of seven levels (meaning, a damned tough one), a friend can join you, but they’ll arrive as a starting-level wimp, so they’ll need your protection for a while (and perhaps your backup sword and off-hand item since you can carry two of each at any time).

The session I played—with Harebrained’s Battletech team, which Gitelman says does most of Necropolis’s co-op testing in its down time—was a bloody riot. Time melted away as we worked together to take out bad guys, accumulate loot, and shout at each other about staying out of everyone’s sword-slashing paths. When a player died, we could spend a lengthy animation bringing them back to life, at which point they came back with reduced health and a reduced stamina maximum—which got lower and lower as we got further and further.