Death Must Die: Complete Beginner’s Guide

Death Must Die is the brand new roguelite, hack-and-slash game available through Early Access on Steam – and for beginner’s it’s pretty daunting!

The game feels as though Hades and Vampire Survivors was meshed into one title, so fans of those games are sure to love the combination of mechanics here.  

This guide aims to help new players who are feeling overwhelmed by the game, through some helpful hints and tricks to start you off!

Complete Beginner’s Guide

Death Must Die will see you battling against huge hordes of enemies, slashing your way through boss fights and eventually coming face to face with Death himself.

The game is fast paced and will throw hundreds of enemies in your direction all at once. You’ll need to pour all your focus into staying one step ahead and never allow yourself to get too overwhelmed.

If you’re dying a lot, don’t be disheartened! The purpose of the game is to die a lot, learn enemy mechanics and gradually level up. Its designed to be grinded over time and played hard.

Toggle Your Auto-Attack

When you first start the game, the above set of controls will be displayed for you. We’d highly recommend Pressing Q to toggle the Auto-Attack.

The game requires a lot of focus. You’ll need to be navigating through the level, completing objectives whilst simultaneously fighting swarms of enemies.

By having your Auto-Attack switched on, there’ll be one less thing to focus on! The auto-attack is the optimal way to keep hordes of enemies at bay.

You shouldn’t keep it on all the time though, since it’ll greatly reduce your movement speed! Have it switched off for roaming, then when enemies get too near – toggle the auto-attack.

Roam Around

In this game, you really need to keep yourself moving! There’s two reasons for this:

Firstly, enemies will automatically gravitate towards you. If you’re sticking to one spot, you are going to get overwhelmed pretty quickly.

Secondly, you need to level up! In the top-right corner is the mini-map. Occasionally you’ll see a yellow dot, representing shrines and chests. These will only appear on your map if you are moving about and constantly exploring.

These are important to find since they’ll help you unlock new abilities, weapons and characters!

Level Up More Efficiently

When you defeat enemies in the game, they’ll drop green gems. Collecting these are what make your character stronger! They can be exchanged with Gods for updated weapons and abilities.

However, we recommend focusing on your current weapons first before picking up new ones!

It might take several runs to figure out which weapons work well with your playstyle. Once you know, stick to levelling up just that.

Mastering Boss Fights

Bosses in Death Must Die are both sporadic and powerful. They can leap at you any time and you shouldn’t be surprised if it takes numerous runs before finally defeating them.  

Their attack are relatively simple to memorise but overwhelming when combined with other enemy attacks!

Your best bet is to memorize their attacks and make use of the dodge/dash move. This should be a staple of your traversal and second nature by the end of a successful boss fight.

They drop some really great loot so you’ll want to make sure you’re taking them down!

Optimise Your Gear

Gear is perhaps one of the most important elements of the game. When you die, you’ll start your run from scratch – but gear is the only thing that stays with you!

Don’t just pick up and equip all the gear you find, since they’ll always be bound to that specific character.

Whilst some may work well for your knight, they might be awful for your assassin – but you won’t be able to swap them!

Before equipping, make sure you hit Shift and check whether it’s well suited for your character.  

Spend Your Gold Wisely

Gold can be obtained from fallen enemies, exploring the world or by selling unwanted items. Enemies with crowns over their head will even drop loot!

As you level up, you’ll eventually reach the shop. This is a great place to sell and buy gear. Don’t spend all your Gold at once though!

Your best bet is to save it up. It’s better to buy one incredibly strong item, than several which are equally weak.

That’s it for this beginners guide to Death Must Die. Consider this your brief introduction to the game, the core mechanics and ways to avoid Death….

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