I was able to try out this demo of a game that caught my eye, and I had a very great time playing it. If you’re looking for something fast-paced with decent customizability and a lot of challenging content to try out, you’re in luck because, in this article, we’ll be talking about Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel, a game by Grindstone that lets you fight off hordes of enemies while making you feel like a complete badass. This game is slated for release on June 08, 2025 for the PC.
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel - Gameplay
Jotunnslayer’s gameplay is what people would call “Bullet Heaven”. It’s a bit like Vampire Survivors in the sense that hordes of enemies will swarm your screen and will do everything they can to attempt to kill your character. You will of course have to fight these hordes off and survive. As time goes by the amount of enemies as well as what types of enemies there are will keep on increasing, making the game more challenging as the stage progresses. On top of all that, you will need to accomplish a set of objectives to actually finish the stage, while under a time limit. Now, I’m not entirely sure if the time limit is actually just there because I only played the demo, or if it’s an actual game mechanic and the stages aren’t actually endless waves of enemies.
I do think the time limit is deliberate because the only way to face that stage’s final boss is to accomplish that stage’s objectives so it’ll give you enough reason to actually do them instead of just grinding while running around the map. Once you finish all the objectives, you’ll get an indication saying you can summon that stage’s boss and when you do manage to summon it, the timer will stop. I guess the game is considerate in the sense that you won’t have to worry about time running out and you’ll just have to focus on not getting your ass thoroughly whipped while you whittle away at the final boss’s health. And of course, since the stages get progressively harder, you’ll get the chance to improve your characters by picking up on some upgrades.
We’ll get into that in a bit, let’s first start things off with the character selection. You’ll be able to choose between four classes before you start the stage, with only two of them being available in the demo. These two are the Berserker and the Seeress. I’ll go into detail with them as well in a bit, but for now, let’s dissect how a regular gameplay would start out. Other than the classes you choose, you can also choose what weapon you will use. These weapons, despite being the same type of weapon, will have different bonuses and it also looks like your weapon skill depends on what weapon you choose. Other than weapons, you will also be able to choose what stage you want to play in, with Niflheim being the only available stage for the demo. You will also get to choose the modifiers, which usually make your gameplay easier or harder in exchange for something. For example, you could lessen your enemies' damage output by 30% in exchange for having 30% less resources you can receive, stuff like that. Lastly, you can also choose the stage’s difficulty where enemies will get tougher and you will get more objectives before you can summon the final boss, but in exchange, it allows you to unlock a lot of modifiers, weapons, and even game modes. With all that said, let’s go into the classes you can choose from.
The Berserker Class
Is it just me or is there always a Berserker class when it comes to Norse-related games? And they’re almost always using axes as weapons. I mean, Vikings also used other weapons like swords and bows but it looks like they’re mostly associated with axes. Anyway, the berserker is one of the two classes you can choose from that isn’t locked out in the demo. It’s a melee-based class, so you’ll have to get in close with enemies before you get to damage them, which is honestly a pain in the early parts of the stage where enemies will be swarming you in pretty much all directions. Because of that, you’ll notice that you’ll be using dash more often than you would with a Seeress who has a ranged attack so you can reposition yourself without being swarmed. What’s worse is that you can only attack those who are in front of you and it kind of makes the early game a bit hard.
One of the perks of choosing the Berserker though is that you gain access to the class trait: Rage. Rage is a buff which is described as “a heightened emotional state that unleashes the Berserker’s full violent potential”, providing a temporary boost to their capabilities. when you do a regular attack, there is a 10% chance you could activate Rage for 4 seconds, during which the Berserker gains a 10% increase in movement speed, regenerates 3 HP per second, and deals 20% more damage. And since you’ll be attacking a whole lot, you’ll frequently be in Rage mode, so you have that semi-constant regeneration which is incredibly useful if you just want to save up on food. Other bonuses include an attack speed increase the lower your health.
This is my preferred class because it just makes things easier with its auto healing. It also allows you to deal significant damage when you’re under Rage, plus it also allows you to move quicker than a seeress would, which does help you accomplish objectives a bit faster. The only problem it has is how you need to be close so you can hit enemies. And when they are in your hitting range, you are also well within their range, which makes boss fights trickier. Its subclasses are Battle Master which increases your overall damage by 30% and this bonus actually doubles when you have the Rage buff, Zealot which lessens God Skills (which I will be talking about later) by 20% and it also doubles in Rage. And Lastly, we have Troll Scion which increases your healing intake by 50% and increases your regeneration by 3 per second. This also gets doubled in Rage.
Overall I really enjoyed playing as a berserker. It just makes enemies feel less punishing because of its regenerative abilities. I also like how a lot of its class upgrades are more geared towards attack and movement speed. It just makes you dish out a lot more damage in so little time.
The Seeress Class
Up next is the Seeress, which is some sort of staff-wielding class that deals ranged damage. This is the complete opposite of Berserker, because it is less nimble, doesn’t have HP regeneration, and starts out with less health compared to the berserker. What’s good about this class though is how you can be safe at a distance attacking enemies, which means they won’t normally be able to attack you without getting close unless they can do ranged attacks. Because of that, the early game is a cinch.
The Seeress' class trait is Eldritch Wards which triggers when you get damaged. It forms a shield around you, allowing you to be invulnerable for a second. It has three charges and each charge takes about 35 seconds to cool down. The other bonus includes a 30% chance to get a bonus skill or reward when leveling up or finishing objectives which is pretty nifty to have since 30% is actually pretty high and you’ll be leveling up a lot during your runs so you’ll have a lot of chances to trigger it.
I noticed that I struggle with mobs far more using this class compared to when I’m against bosses, despite the fact that it should be easier to deal with them than the berserker. And the funny thing is I actually struggled more with bosses than I do with mobs when using the Berserker. The lack of health regeneration is just a bit too hard for higher difficulty stages because you’ll be relying on food more, which you often won’t get enough of. The subclasses of the Seeress are Hag which gives you a +25% damage increase, Soul Collector, which lets the soul crystals you collect damage your enemies, and Witch, which applies debilitating debuffs to your enemies.
I played the Seeress way less than I did with the Berserker, but funnily enough, I got farther with the Seeress in terms of progress than I ever did with the berserker. I didn’t quite understand her mechanics at first, but being able to shrug off damage because you’ll be invulnerable for a moment is honestly very useful and I feel like if I had just given more time to explore the class, I would have probably preferred the Seeress. It’s a good class and is something you’ll definitely enjoy if you’re more into ranged combat.
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel - Customization
Next we’ll talk about the skill upgrades you’re able to get during stages. There are two kinds of Skill upgrades, one is Class skill and the other is God skill. Class skills are upgrades you can only get with the class you have, they’re usually upgrades like faster attacking speed or more critical speed. They only usually affect your own normal attacks, stats or weapon skills.
On the other hand, God skills give you skills like generating chain lightning when you do a normal attack, or summoning some sort of corporeal titan to shoot lightning at your enemies, or generating some sort of pulsing field that damages your enemies and pushes them away. Class skills will obviously depend on what sort of class you are. A berserker will only have berserker class skills and will obviously not be able to get Seeress skills. On the other hand, God skills are available for all classes. you may get Thor God skills which are mostly lightning-based focused attacks, or Freya God skills which are mostly some sort of light-based AoE attacks that also allow you to regenerate.
What’s cool about choosing these skills is that you have several rerolls and banishes. Rerolls let you reroll what skill choices are available to you. If, say, you end up with only Seeress and Freya options but you were going for a build that mostly focuses on Thor God skills, then you can do a reroll to refresh your options and hope that you end up with Thor God Skill options. Banishes on the other hand are used on skills with really lame options. Like, say, you are aiming for certain Thor skills but you almost always get the crit upgrade passive skill, you can use your banish to verify it doesn’t show up as an option anymore. I honestly think the game can be a bit lenient with guiding you to your preferred abilities, and you can almost always build your character up so it lets you have the skills that match your preferred playstyle.
I’ve also been seeing people get Loki God Skill options when I watched some gameplay footage but I can’t figure out how to unlock those in the demo. Maybe you can unlock other God skills the more you progress in the game. I’m not entirely sure but I think that’s pretty much the case. I would always use mostly Thor skills on my Berserker runs. It’s just really fun seeing your normal attacks electrocute random enemies, or lightning bolts from the sky hitting them. It’s just more geared towards offense than Freya’s skills which the Seeress class would benefit from since it gives you the health regen. It’s really all about mixing and matching what skills you have and making sure they complement your playstyle and each other.
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel - Bonuses and Final Thoughts
Next are virtues. Virtues are pretty much bonuses you can apply to your character before you start your stage run. Think of them as passives that are purchasable using gold that you get from your runs and they come with a variety of helpful effects that could potentially help you out. It’s definitely something to consider if you find yourself stuck and couldn’t progress through difficult stages. And just like the skills, you can choose to invest your gold in God virtues which are bonuses that are available to all classes, or class virtues that are only available to that corresponding class. I’d suggest investing on God virtues first if you haven’t found a class you see yourself maining. I mostly spent my gold on Thor, Freya, and Berserker virtues because I use Berserker the most.
I spend pretty much the entire afternoon and evening playing this game and funnily enough, I only managed to finish the Normal difficulty in Niflheim during that time. It is my fault because I initially didn’t know about the virtues and what they brought to the table. After getting the virtues, I eventually ended up beating Hard, which was the hardest difficulty in the demo. But wow did it really take a whole lot of dying to figure out what sort of build I should be doing as well as what skills I should be going for. The leap in difficulty between easy to normal was very significant, and the way the difficulty lept from normal to hard was almost too funny. I must say though, the designs look amazing. The bone Jotun that kind of serves as the final boss of the Niflheim area looks very menacing and isn’t something you could just cheese with range. And the bosses here are enemies that you can never outrun because once you gain a significant amount of distance from them, they’ll reappear near you and start whooping your butt again.
Compared to other games in the genre, I like playing this more because of how the mechanics are simpler for me to understand. It’s all just straightforward and despite having a lot of customizability, it’s something you could comprehend if you just take the time to explore it. If I do have any gripes with the game, it would be that I sometimes get performance dips from time to time, especially when there are huge waves of enemies on the screen. I guess it’s alright for now since this is just the demo, but I do wish they’d optimize it with the final release. I think they will because this has been pointed out by several players and the devs are the type to listen to feedback. They also mentioned that they are considering multiplayer co-op for the game, but right now they are focused on making sure the game is stable, which honestly sounds very promising. That’s it for this article, the demo is still available on Steam at the time of writing. I’d get it quickly if I were you though because devs have a habit of disabling their demos a few weeks before the game releases and there’s no telling how long the demo will stay up.
