Should have known after the mass popularity of Vampire Survivors there would be lots of similar games following suit.

From TemTem Swarm to Deep Rock Survivor, known IPs are even producing spinoffs in the genre and Achilles is next on the list.

Achilles Survivor is, yep, a horde survivor where you kill lots and lots – and lots of enemies – progressing through four realms – each with their own series of mini locations and choose a Survivor from various classes including Enchanters, Warriors, Rogues and Marksmen.

It follows the moderately succesful Achilles: Legends Untold that was more of a Diablo-like and offers a surprisingly fun and interesting take on proceedings.

Each Survivor plays a little differently with their bespoke weapons, Achilles himself have a Myrmidon Spear but others using swords, aura, poison spittle, clubs, boulders and magical staffs. And each have their own special attributes, like improved dodge and critical strikes.

As you fight and kill enemies, you build up XP and gain levels and eventually by continuing to play as a character you’ll also unlock their special talents, like being able to summon folks to fight with you or adding a powerful additional effect to their attack.

It all sounds fairly standard fare then, but where Achilles Survivor does things a bit differently is in the construction of defenses and deconstruction of points of interest.

As you fight and rove around the map, you’ll find markers which you’ll need to stand within for a period in order to gather materials or open a chest. Once you’ve got enough and have levelled up far enough, you can then head to one of the banners and build a defense mechanism.

It might be a flame turret that cinders enemies to a crisp or pulser that pushes enemies away from it, exposing them and putting more distance between you and them so you can finish the job.

These can stand and fight back against enemies, leaving XP for you to gather at a later point in the level so you can do other things. But be careful as enemies can and will attack and destroy your buildings.

Fortunately, you will also be able to iterate and evolve through all the XP gained, similar to Vampire Survivors, in that you can earn more health, improve your damage output and critical strike chance, but even increase building time for structures and improve their fortifications / even make them invulnerable for a certain period after being built.

New powers can also be earned as you progress through the levels, whether you want to throw a shield at enemies that ricochets between them ala Captain America. Or you summon a giant that crushes enemies, the choice is yours to suit your playstyle and how a run is faring.

Each location has a series of objectives you need to fulfil before you can progress onto the next – like closing a certain number of trapdoors which open and summon more enemies or deal a certain amount of damage with your powers. This all compliments the main objective of the level which is survival through the alloted time and then completing the end-goal.

And throughout all of that as well, the game has a favors and reward system that unlocks generous rewards, like new Survivors for you to play with, new locations, XP for classes, lots of gold and gems and even new structures. So it’s really useful to keep track of what you need to do and it might even help you progress deeper into a run as your favourite survivor is one you might not have met yet!

And on top of that, you’ll have large hulking enemy champions to contend against and fight with, that obviously have a much larger health pool and hit with greater force than average foes.

The game has been in Early Access for sometime and is approaching its full release today. You can see how much the project has evolved and there’s an aura of polish around it that looks and feels sharp. The game looks really polished and impressive with it actually boasting some of the most realistic, horrifying looking spiders I’ve seen. Not sure if that’s a good thing…

Regardless, I found myself spending hours on Achilles Survivor, it’s easily one of the better additions to the genre and the game is surprisingly vast with the four chunky realms and the individual locations within them, as well as all of the objectives to complete and survivors and tower combos to check out and experiment with.

I did find the runs themselves did go on for a bit longer than I’d like. I would probably have been happier shaving off five, maybe even ten minutes off the run to make it a bit more digestible. As it stands, the runs do feel like a bit of a slog at the moment.

There’s also the different difficulty sets to experiment with and the endless mode, so Achilles Survivor really is quite rich with content and a bargain at the price. I love the vibe it offers with its Greek setting and some of the Survivors and creatures generally feel creative and enjoyable to play with the game offering a good sense of scale between who you are and what you face.

When you complete a run, you can then enter the Favors screen to spend your earnings on permanent upgrades for the different class-types as well as general survivor and building development.

It’s a classic-Survivor like in many ways, but it’s definitely one of the more solid, engaging ones with really lovely looking graphics – this game absolutely sparkles on PS5 – and an interesting angle and approach with a semi tower defense concept that can add to your strategies, particularly when playing as certain classes. It’s great!

Verdict

Achilles Survivor is a fantastic addition to the horde survivor genre with its focus on risk vs reward, brains and brawn and stunning visuals. The loop is solid, the variety is great and it all contributes to a title you can spend many hours on. The run length does drag on a bit at times and there is a sense of repetition in the battles that can be tedious at times, but for the price, value and quality on offer, you’d be hard-pressed to pass on this one.

Pros

Achilles Survivor is out now on PC, PS, and Xbox

Played on PlayStation 5

Code kindly provided by Dark Point Games for review purposes