The lord of the undead rises again!
Raising itself from the depths of the underworld, Iratus: Lord of the Dead returns with its new Wrath of the Necromancer DLC. Released on Steam on October 26th, the extra content adds a whole new level of necromancy madness to Unfrozen and Daedalic Entertainment’s rogue-like, dungeon crawling strategy RPG.
The DLC adds a slew of new craftable items, 2 new minions, skins for your existing monstrosities, and a whole new dungeon, the Cemetery, plus an extra ending to add to the undead fun.
Waiting gets boring for an immortal
Iratus: Wrath of the Necromancer leaves the overall plot of the game unchanged keeping you in the unique reverse role of Iratus, the rightfully angry and villainous necromancer who has been made a pawn one too many times. Initially roused from his slumber by some extremely unlucky grave robbers, you’ll first take to murdering your soon to be new undead servants to begin your quest for vengeance against those who imprisoned you. After hours of assembling an army of some of the vilest creatures from your worst nightmares, crafting your underground lair, and plowing through the multiple dungeons laced with powerful enemies, you’ll finally make your way to the land of the living and realize your dream of extinguishing all life in existence.
After successfully ending everything as we know it, the new master of the world gets hit with a reality check and given a choice that no evil conquerer would willingly accept. Taking the mic drop from the gods like a champ, the players are then thrust into the new post-game dungeon. From then on, players get to massacre their way through the Cemetery’s denizens and have the chance to experience the added ending that peers into the future of our favorite dark summoner.
Crafting is key
No evil necromancer is complete without a plethora of undead and freakishly designed creatures at his command and a dark, dank subterranean base of operations. With the new and powerful end game enemies that join the fray in the Iratus expansion, this lord of chaos will still need to make use of everything in his arsenal. Minion-crafting is still as prevalent as ever in Wrath of the Necromancer. Now we have the addition of the two new and extremely useful minions, the Reaper and Abomination. Battles, along with team and damage building, took on a whole new level of fun in the expansion.
The combat in Wrath of the Necromancer remains true to Lord of the Dead‘s turn-based, strategic, 2D battle system, with clashes relying on how intuitively and swiftly you could take out your enemies with stress, physical, or magical based attacks. The DLC’s 2 new minions really shake up entire team compositions and make you feel even mightier as you point, click, and slaughter your way through hordes of foes. Necromancers always need more crafting parts, after all. Like a swift angel of death, the Reaper added an extra layer of damage to my stress damage teams. No longer having to wait for enemies to die from a heart attack, I was able to take out enemies in one blow once I could get their stress bar low enough. Acting like my personal meat shield, the Abomination looked just like his role states – a horrifically beaten down, fleshy mass of teeth and terror. It was a perfect support tank, soaking up all the punishment and keeping my squishy backline covered and protected while still dishing out damage and keeping enemies at bay.
Along with these new creatures and craftable items to add to and upgrade your army, the expansion also gives us a much-welcomed feature called Battle Potions. By mixing random crafting items together, players can create beneficial potions that can be unleashed in battle, boosting your party to greater heights. Combining Iratus’s magic with potions that increase stress damage or decrease foe’s luck gives players more devastating ways to end them even faster. It’s best to make use of all the new features you have at your disposal, especially on the greater difficulties. With so many strategic possibilities at your fingertips, combat continues to have an intuitive, fresh, and rewarding feeling when your team composition is finally solidified.
Feel the wrath of a Necromancer
I was genuinely surprised by how engaging Iratus: Lord of the Dead was, and Wrath of the Necromancer expansion only added to the game’s depth. I can honestly say I thoroughly loved the experience all the way through, so much that I took as much time as possible to go through everything that I could. Overall, this strategic, dungeon-crawling rogue-like offers one of the most refreshing protagonists out there. His crude and snarky commentary made my exploration and battles all the more entertaining. After spending hours and hours playing Iratus: Wrath of the Necromancer, I never once found myself bored. To sum things up, if a true strategy and team-building RPG is what you crave, then I wholeheartedly recommend grabbing this expansion off of Steam.
Final Verdict: 4/5
Available on:PC (reviewed); Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment; Developer: Unfrozen; Players: 1; Release Date: October 26, 2020; MSRP: $14.99
Editor’s note: The publisher provided a review copy
