

Gameplay closely follows the blueprint of a typical action roguelite, particularly Dead Cells, wherein you attempt to fight your way through an increasingly more difficult gauntlet of randomized levels as you ascend the floors of your headquarters and defeat the supervisor of each department. Though we occasionally wish there was a more focused narrative to show us around this fascinating corporate hellscape, things like flavor text in the bestiary and brief conversations with NPCs nonetheless do a great job of worldbuilding. Whether it be a naïve and overworked intern excitedly telling you that she’s going to be hazed tomorrow or a detailed description of the over-the-top way that an enemy met their original demise, there’s tons of personality and wit to be found in Have a Nice Death's writing. There’s not much more to the story of Have a Nice Death in terms of plot, but this is a title that absolutely revels in its delightfully dark and morbid sense of humor. Death thus picks up his old scythe and begins a little corporate restructuring, setting out on a journey through every floor of every department to aggressively lay off his misbehaving staff. It turns out that Death delegated too many tasks all the beings he appointed to oversee transitions to the afterlife have gotten much too trigger-happy and have been going way over quota.

For years, Death enjoys putting his feet up and letting the Kafkaesque organization do its thing while he just rubber stamps the paperwork that comes across his desk, but matters begin to get out of hand when the admin rises to ridiculous levels. To take the weight off his shoulders, he decides to start a corporation to hire various ghouls and ghosts to do the work for him while he can distantly manage affairs from a comfy executive office. It places you in the role of Death himself, who has grown tired of the hard graft involved in harvesting souls for millennia. We’re happy to report that the developer has succeeded with its sophomore outing Have a Nice Death is an enjoyable and addictive experience that roguelite fans should take note of. Since then, it’s been gradually baking in early access on Steam and now that it finally reached 1.0 status, it’s received a console-exclusive release on Switch.

For the next few years, the team went quiet while working on its next game, revealed in late 2021 as Have A Nice Death, a tough action roguelite about the grim reaper. In 2019, Magic Design Studios-a new team comprised of many ex-Ubisoft staff-put out the Rayman-esque Unruly Heroes, which we thought was a great platformer with some amazing visuals.
