Bullet heaven is what we’re apparently calling the Vampire Survivors-like genre, because the only decent competing name was “auto shooter survival” and unfortunately the acronym for that is “ass”. Spitfire Interactive, the developers of Hordes of Fate, are splitting the difference with “bullet heaven auto shooter”, but you know what kind of game it is: a roguelike where you gear up a hero then set them loose to auto-attack endless monsters, upgrading as you go.
Hordes of Fate has the pedigree of Defiant Development behind it, the developers of the Hand of Fate roguelikes, and boasts that it’s coming from “the original creative team.” (Spitfire Interactive was also responsible for superhero tactics game Capes last year.)
Like the Hand of Fate games, Hordes of Fate will include a deckbuilding component. “Text encounters and quests drawn from your deck allow you to unlock Tokens and earn new cards to expand the possibilities and grow your power for each subsequent run”, they say, and the evil Dungeon Master calling himself the Dealer has returned alongside various unlockable heroes from the Hand of Fate games as well.
I do like the idea of being able to play as that little goblin dude in the red hat rather than another noble hero. And I also like the idea of the choose-your-own-adventure segments of Hand of Fate returning in some form, but we’ll have to wait to see how much they shake up the bullet heaven formula. (See, if I’d said “shake up the ass formula” it just wouldn’t work.) Hordes of Fate will be available on Steam in Q3 of 2025.
Best MMOs: Most massive
Best strategy games: Number crunching
Best open world games: Unlimited exploration
Best survival games: Live craft love
Best horror games: Fight or flight
