Hero's Song - Hands On @PC Gamer

PC Gamer got hands on with Hero's Song and like its ambitious, emergent RPG concept.

If my first attempt at Hero's Song had actually been a song, I barely would have had time to reach the second chorus. It took me far less time to die in my world than it'd taken to make it. I spent half an hour creating a world I'd enjoy for this roguelike RPG, weighing the pros of chaotic gods who manifest themselves as swarms of rats and the cons of blonde elf goddesses who bring forests and abundant life. I pored over descriptions of its 10 races and 15 current classes, and scoured webpages with Celtic baby names for my elathi monk.

And so it was, naturally, that I hopped across huge puddle north of the town where I spawned and got killed by two arrows from an orcish archer within seconds. I had a single chance to revive by making a trip through the Underworld, but a swarm of zombies got me as I pushed for the door. Permadeath. Poor Conloach Niocha wasn't even a one-hit wonder.

That's roguelikes, of course. The next five characters I made across multiple servers fared far better, particularly once I learned to lure enemies to where I wanted them. And even though my other characters had the spans between their births and deaths filled with more exploration, crafting, and skill unlocks, that's about as exciting as Hero's Song gets right now. It's so 'Early Access,' in fact, that it flashes a screenwide notice that Pixelmage Games is "just at the beginning stages of our vision" at launch. and it doesn't even take an hour with Hero's Song to see just how true that is.