Death Howl

For the better part of a decade, deckbuilders have been organized around the run: start fresh, draft a deck, die, repeat. Death Howl, developed by The Outer Zone and published by 11 bit studios, discards that template. There are no linear runs. The card game sits inside an open world of four realms and 13 regions, and the deck the player builds is the one they keep.

The premise is grim and specific. Ro, a hunter grieving her dead son, crosses into the Spirit World to bring him back. That setup does more than most genre framing devices. A story about refusing to accept loss suits a game about refusing to accept defeat, where the answer to a lost fight is to return and learn the pattern that caused it.

Mechanically, it sits where few games go. Fights are turn-based tactical battles on a grid, and cards control movement as well as attack and defense. The deck draws on a pool of more than 160 cards, and totems change how that deck behaves. More than 30 enemy types and a set of demanding boss fights supply the opposition. The soulslike label is a statement of intent: the game is punishing, and it expects the player to improve along with the deck.

The reception is warm rather than rapturous. On Steam, user reviews land at a Very Positive rating, and recent reviews hold at the same level. On Metacritic, the game sits at 82. Praise centers on how well the two genres combine. Complaints center on pacing, a rough opening and a difficulty level that turns some people away. A full playthrough runs 25+ hours on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

• Open world instead of runs: Four realms and 13 regions, explored at the player’s own pace, contain secrets, side quests and hostile spirits. The deck carries forward through the whole journey.
• Grid tactics with card-driven movement: Ro’s position on the grid matters as much as the hand. Moving, attacking and defending all cost cards, so every step has a price.
• A 160+ card pool and totems: The deck grows across the campaign. Totems add effects on top of it, so the same cards can play very differently.
• Spirit quests with strings attached: Some spirits offer quests that reshape the deck, and not all of them mean well.
• 30+ enemy types and hard bosses: Boss fights test positioning and deck construction together.
• Soulslike difficulty: The game is punishing by design. Progress depends on learning enemy patterns.

Structure: Trading the Run for a Map

Dropping runs is The Outer Zone’s most important decision, and it changes what a deckbuilder asks of its player. In a run-based game, a bad draft lasts until the next run. In Death Howl, the deck is built over time in a persistent world, so every choice carries weight. A card added carelessly dilutes draws for hours, not minutes.

That persistence is what makes the soulslike label fit. Soulslikes rely on a world that remembers progress, with bosses that stay where they are until they fall. A persistent map of 13 regions gives the deck the same continuity. The exploration layer of secrets and side quests also gives the player somewhere to go when a boss blocks the way. That is how the best games in this tradition keep a hard wall from becoming a dead end.

Combat: Position Is a Resource

The grid is what separates Death Howl from the rest of the card-battler field. Movement comes from cards, so positioning competes with attack and defense for the same limited hand. Stepping off a dangerous tile might mean giving up a strike. Holding ground to attack might mean taking a hit. Each hand poses two problems at once: what to play, and where Ro needs to stand when it resolves.

Against more than 30 enemy types, the grid gives encounter design more range than a static lineup could. An enemy’s threat can depend on where it stands and what it can reach, which suits a game where progress comes from learning patterns. The cost is complexity. A system with two axes is harder to read and slower to master than a conventional card battler, and that accounts for much of the difficulty.

Deckbuilding, Totems and Bad Bargains

A pool of more than 160 cards is large for a game where the deck persists, and the totems multiply it. Totems change how the deck plays, so a card’s value depends partly on its surroundings. That is the right kind of depth for a 25-hour campaign. Builds can evolve instead of being drafted once and forgotten.

The spirit quests are the sharpest idea in the game. Spirits offer changes to the deck, but they may not have Ro’s best interests in mind. This turns grief’s temptations into a mechanic: a player who wants power faces the same choice Ro does, and can accept help without knowing its price. The persistent deck raises the stakes, because a bad bargain stays with the player. We consider that a strength. Players who dislike being punished for information they could not have had may disagree.

Difficulty and Pacing

This is where the praise comes with conditions. The most common complaints are slow pacing and progression, a rough opening, and combat hard enough to drive some players away. These problems are connected. A 160-card pool spread across 25+ hours means the early deck is necessarily thin. A thin deck in a punishing game makes for a hard first stretch, and the variety that gives the system its range arrives later.

Some of that slowness is structural, and the payoff justifies it. The rough opening is a real onboarding problem all the same. A game this demanding has to earn the player’s trust early, and the early stretch is where it is weakest. The difficulty itself is a defensible choice that genre fans will see as the point. It narrows the audience, though. Players who come to deckbuilders for low-stakes experimentation will find the opposite here.

Story

The story of Ro’s grief lands as moving and, unexpectedly, sometimes funny. Humor in a story about a dead child is a tonal risk, and the balance appears to hold. The narrative also gives the difficulty a purpose. A game about refusing to let go is well suited to a structure that rewards persistence.

The striking art is among the most consistently praised parts of Death Howl. In a grid tactics game, art direction also has a practical job. Tiles, enemy positions and card effects need to read at a glance, because a misread position in a punishing game costs the fight. Striking art only helps if it keeps the board clear. Readability is not a common complaint, and the criticisms focus on pacing and difficulty instead.

The interface has to present a hand of cards and a tactical grid together without making either one hard to parse. That is a heavier load than a card battler with static positions, and it makes the clarity of the UI central to whether the combat feels fair.

On performance, the turn-based design is forgiving. With no real-time input windows, frame pacing and input latency matter far less than in an action soulslike. The challenge comes from decisions, not reflexes. A 2D game of this scope should sit comfortably on modest hardware, including the Switch.

Steam (PC)

Mouse and keyboard suit a game built on selecting cards and targeting tiles. Weak controller support on PC is one of the most common complaints, so anyone planning to use a gamepad, whether on a couch or a handheld PC, should take it into account. PC buyers also have the largest body of player feedback to consult, with a Very Positive rating on Steam.

Nintendo Switch

Turn-based combat with no real-time pressure suits handheld play, although a 25+ hour soulslike with demanding bosses is a commitment on any screen. A console version has to be built around a controller, and the controller complaints are specific to PC. Switch buyers have a Nintendo-focused outlet’s 8/10 as one signal among several.

Parity

The same content ships on PC, Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S: four realms, 13 regions, more than 160 cards and the totem system. The choice of platform comes down to input preference and where the player wants to play.

Death Howl makes a reasonable case that a deckbuilder does not need runs. The Outer Zone places a persistent deck inside an open world and makes movement something the player spends cards on. The result is a tactics game where every hand is a positional puzzle and every boss is a pattern to work out. The grief story gives the punishment a reason to exist, and the spirit quests turn deck building into a series of bargains with uncertain terms.

The friction is real. The opening is rough, progression is slow, and the difficulty will end some players’ journeys early. PC players on a gamepad face a known weak spot. None of that undoes the design, but it does keep the game from reaching a wider audience. We rate it a good buy for patient players who want a deckbuilder with a soulslike’s persistence and difficulty. Those looking for quick, forgiving card sessions should pass.