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Game
Game2025
Netherworld Covenant
Developer MadGoat Game Studio
In the abyss where the mortal realm and netherworld intertwine, become a warrior wielding the power of the Nether Lantern to fight along with the fallen souls. With hardcore, soulslike action and intriguing roguelike builds, shatter the cursed barriers and unveil the truth woven from blood and soul. From the Steam store page
168 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 20, 2026 · last updated Oct 21, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
75
LovedLoved
121 positive · 40 negative
95% range 68–81%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 121 | 40 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Mastodon * | 1 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
136 of 179 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
75% recommend · 123 yes, 41 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 164 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (581 of 736 positive).
Players praise the responsive, satisfying combat and compare it favorably to Hades. [1][2][3] Several players note the game is short and needs more content. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [11]
The game is relatively good. There is clear use of AI art. The gameplay is smooth always with some jank. But most importantly the 4th area, the tower, is nearly implayable. Every little step, every stair becomes an invisible wall and you get stuck in the middle of the arena. Even mobs get stuck. This needs to be fixed now!
- [1]
Souls-like Hades goes HARD. What i liked: - Fluent, smooth, satisfying, fast-paced and skill-based gameplay. - Bosses/Elites are badass, unique and their movesets are so cool that it makes me wish i could play as them. - Decent roguelite elements with meta progression and unlockable weapons/skills. Could use more though. - Challenging but not overbearing. With difficulty options and meta progression you can make the …
- [10]
My only major complaint is sound design, it's a lot of high pitched sounds that I don't enjoy. The merchant room being the best example, that's just torture to my ears. It's challenging and feels responsive, sometimes i get the impression abilities aren't being properly interrupted but i haven't played enough to be certain. If you enjoy similar games and are looking for a tougher challenge, this is probably what …
- [5]
8/10 – A sharp, satisfying short romp Netherworld Covenant surprised me. Despite some of the negative reviews floating around, the moment to moment gameplay is genuinely solid. Combat feels tight, responsive, and rewarding. Parrying and dodging land just right, and it has that “one more run” pull without ever feeling exhausting. Hot take, but I honestly enjoyed jumping into this more than Hades in short bursts. If …
- [2]
Fantastic game, its like Hades but with much better movement, responsiveness, bad-ass combat feeling, fast-paced progression and very satisfying combat, I recommend it, while it starts slow and feels a bit boring, as you learn the mechanics and combat, it gets fun, especially the teleport to your ghost and the slow-motion effects, real good work from the developers to pull things like that off.
Summarised from 34 of the 174 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
75% of the 164 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Netherworld Covenant. The complaint that keeps coming up: sound design has high-pitched, unpleasant sounds. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Reactions
60 of 168 · most liked firstIt's OK. For the base cost of $20 and even the current discount of $16 I'd say it's too much. You really need to be running out of similar games to want this game. It has interesting concepts that need polished and a lot of things that need to be simplified. The UI is poorly setup. I keep forgetting I even have these ghost buddies that can do things because their resource is off the in the corner where I am not watching. Only thing that is front and center is your staimina. Combat got…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is relatively good. There is clear use of AI art. The gameplay is smooth always with some jank. But most importantly the 4th area, the tower, is nearly implayable. Every little step, every stair becomes an invisible wall and you get stuck in the middle of the arena. Even mobs get stuck. This needs to be fixed now!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Souls-like Hades goes HARD. What i liked: - Fluent, smooth, satisfying, fast-paced and skill-based gameplay. - Bosses/Elites are badass, unique and their movesets are so cool that it makes me wish i could play as them. - Decent roguelite elements with meta progression and unlockable weapons/skills. Could use more though. - Challenging but not overbearing. With difficulty options and meta progression you can make the game easier for yourself. - Awesome dark fantasy setting, premise,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The action is good... but the game balancing is terrible. I love souls games and they are my fav genre, and I love good actio ngames too. But this game has an issue of the difficulty design: the devs believes harder bosses have to summon a bunch of minions onto the screen to make the fight harder. Yeah, it's harder, except the game itself is balanced around "careful" action for 1v1 or 1vFew, not 1vMany. Like you can have a careful kite build, then the boss turns it into a dps race because if…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If I could refund this game I would. It is very average in almost every way, but I had hoped the combat would get more interesting as the difficulty increased and I unlocked more build options and classes. Unfortunately, it just feels like an empty experience. The game features almost no voice acting, and the NPCs, environments, sound/music, etc. are husks or placeholders. The bosses are the only things that offer any challenge though most are still fairly easy. The abilities and powers you get…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Okay game, some neat concepts. What ruined it for me is AI usage for art.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't know why I bought this game, it looked like an ARPG. What the heck is a rogue like dark souls game? I dunno either, but I can't stop playing it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately, over 9 hours, I encountered a huge number of technical problems and bugs, preventing me from completing a single run. No matter how many patches were released, I was stuck with a constant loading screen before the final boss. The game is essentially broken. Furthermore, restarting the game doesn't fix the issue, and my save file gets corrupted, so I had to start over three times. At this point, I was simply fed up with it. Otherwise, the project is extremely interesting, though…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly if you'd say you're pretty experienced with top down action rogue-lites, skip it. I was breezing through this "souls-like" with no issues whatsoever. Sure there's higher difficulties, but I was just so bored. I began to wonder if the class I picked was busted but it was just the mechanics making it easy. Perfect dodges have way too long of a window, your extra skills are mostly unnecessary, enemies telegraph their moves super obviously and have really bad AI. Just bait them into…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a boring, uninspired, repetitive, poor-mileage roguelite. This is not a soulslike as it does not have a "lose your souls" mechanic, nor any form of soulslike world. This is not a rougeliKe as it has significant meta-progression, which is required to beat runs. Runs get boring fast, there is no procedural generation, and some dungeons reuse the same exact room more than once. Upgrade selections have minimal effect on gameplay and are utterly boring. Difficultly spike between…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic game, its like Hades but with much better movement, responsiveness, bad-ass combat feeling, fast-paced progression and very satisfying combat, I recommend it, while it starts slow and feels a bit boring, as you learn the mechanics and combat, it gets fun, especially the teleport to your ghost and the slow-motion effects, real good work from the developers to pull things like that off.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My only major complaint is sound design, it's a lot of high pitched sounds that I don't enjoy. The merchant room being the best example, that's just torture to my ears. It's challenging and feels responsive, sometimes i get the impression abilities aren't being properly interrupted but i haven't played enough to be certain. If you enjoy similar games and are looking for a tougher challenge, this is probably what you're looking for. Edit a few patches later: Sound still sucks. Couple of UI…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game feels like an early access title with promise. Not a 1.0 launch
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's a Hades clone that feels, looks and plays better in my opinion.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has potential but needs more content and redesign the upgrade / skill system. Every round is almost the same. Different skills and charaters won't change combat experience. Feels boring after few hours. At this moment, I don't recommend everyone to buy it unless it is on sale.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →AI art is theft
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Everyone is saying Hades x Souls but feels like a jankier Trial of SekhemASS in Path of Exile 2 to me. I like it though.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a no from me dawg. Each run is extremely redundant, there's jank all over the place, honestly it's very hard to think of anything positive to say other than the areas look nice (the first time you see them) and the combat has some satisfying moments (until you've played for about 5 hours and playing literally anything else seems more appealing). This one might have potential but all things considered it really does feel as though it should still be in early access.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →game is a control mess....tried playing with xbox one controller and was so clunky i gave up in short period of time ...looked through game files and game is setup for Mobile graphics like wtf its a pc game yet dev is using unity mobile specs....REFUNDED
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A Dark Fantasy Hades game with weighty combat and two handed weapons? Yeah, I'll buy that.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →most of attacks are too quick for me to react to some areas feature enemies with annoying stuff: like screen wide attacks with multiple enemies there or enemies that off screen or enemies that leave on death affects and the room rewards spawn in that and you have to wait for it to dissipate. for me this was annoying not challenging. enemies in general have dark souls 2 problem of excessive tracking. I was constantly seeing them do 180 degree turns to hit me mid animation also the counter attack…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Absolutely worth a play, it's has fun and challenging Hades-style gameplay without the option to seemingly get overpowered. Enemies are pretty varied across levels/rooms and keep the playtime fresh. Overall, great game, looking fwd to what the devs do - hopefully more weapon choices (I love polearms and bows, hint hint).
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a decent game. Very short atm and not particularly hard if you're accustomed to games like Hades. The primary difficulty is mainly fighting the controls when they don't want to respond immediately. In the 2 hours that I played, I beat what the game currently has, twice. My primary issue is the scale of the game atm, which is waaaaaaaaaay too small. The combat areas need to be way bigger. Right now it's just, run 4 feet, fight 4 dudes, run another 4 feet, fight 4 more dudes, level…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The gameplay mechanics are on point. Combat feels responsive. The variety in skills is good. The legacy/meta progression could be better explained to the player though. My biggest gripe is there doesn't seem to be a story hook. I don't feel compelled to progress, other than the combat is fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's fun and challenging. -Isometric Souls-like with upgrades kinda like Conquest Dark.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Repetitive. If I could use one word to describe this game, that would be it. Yes there are lots of classes to choose from, a few different weapons to use for each of them, but the fact that you play those tiny small areas that you progress through with the same enemies in the same order in the same patern each time makes this game redundant too damn fast. It starts out really good, then without 3 hours it feels like you've seen everything the game has to offer. I'm not a fan of rogue-lite…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →F***ing imagine NOT being able to SKIP an artifact if you dont want it and you BEING FORCED to take it since after the boss next only room being random. Both my runs (7+ bosses each) ive got my build ruined by being forced to replace my core-build artifact. Oh, and those mobs with the tentacle cone attack for nearly half of the screen - chef`s kiss. Be prepared to some bulls*it hitboxes. Overall its an 6,5/10 roguelite, with great combat, low difficulty curve if you dont rush and a lot of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The gameplay is okay but the ai artwork sucks, horrible visuals, zero effort art direction, ugly as hell
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't support a game dev who can't even hire actual artists for the game. AI slop
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →8/10 – A sharp, satisfying short romp Netherworld Covenant surprised me. Despite some of the negative reviews floating around, the moment to moment gameplay is genuinely solid. Combat feels tight, responsive, and rewarding. Parrying and dodging land just right, and it has that “one more run” pull without ever feeling exhausting. Hot take, but I honestly enjoyed jumping into this more than Hades in short bursts. If I’ve got 20 minutes between work and dinner and just want to unwind, this hits…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fight for 20 seconds, walk through a gate. Fight for 20 seconds, load screen. Die, lose your gold and go back to the beginning. The combat is fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very good game. Very responsive combat and great mechanics for a Rogue-like. Satisfies the "one more run" itch for me every evening.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Is this a Lords of the Fallen rogue like ARPG? Seems like it. Fun game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Slow and boring gameplay. No normal weapon selection. In the game only swords, have the same move set, the difference is only in the speed of animation and not a big change in damage. Amulets as for me all useless except for the increase in damage at low xp. The number of perks in the game is very small as well as their variety, the mechanics of activation is just terrible. Generally does not feel that the character becomes stronger when you study them. At the moment the game is boring, maybe…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game audio is messed up badly, gameplay is clunky, environment is uninspired, skills and upgrades feel useless and not fu
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →🔥🕹️ #NetherworldCovenant 1.0 by MadGoat Game Studio | @criticalleap.bsky.social #indiegame #indiegames #videogames #gaming
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is very fun. If you are deciding whether to buy it, don't hesitate. You won't regret it. I hope it is more popular.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →overall good quality game, impressive
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Netherworld Covenant is one of those games where you think you'll be playing for 10 minutes, and you look up and it's been 3 hours later and you still want more. A mixture of Diablo ARPG Style combat, roguelike deckbuilding and brilliant atmosphere environments with a Hades style gameplay, this game has all the mechanics to keep you hooked. Developers MadGoat have put something together truly exciting- at the time of writing (8/4 2025) the game is releasing a brand new patch with even more…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Emphatically reminds you to use a controller for the best experience yet goes crazy when you try to use one. Curious... -1/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, looks promising but currently very disapoining. The first isometric game where the movement is not aligned with the map orientation. So running in stright in any direction eventually gets you into the wall of the path :D How did that get into the game??? Combat feels on one side very nice: hitting feels good. But doging... oh my.... i never know if i doged, perfectly doged or got hit. There is basically no feedback. I have to move my eyes off the importat part to see if i lost hp. Very…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →At this point in time I would avoid this game. There are some very serious issues with performance and inputs. The game often won't accept a movement command for some reason and you fix this with moving a different direction. I can hold w to move forward and my character stands still until I tap d then he will move. The game also runs worse than Monster Hunter Wilds which is saying alot. I would crash on mhw every 3 hours but this game crashes every hour. It is a upscaling issue that this game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't know if I recommend the game or not. It is fun, but I am 2 hours in and I still have not unlocked anyone. I keep unlocking weapons I cannot use. Makes me a little bored.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its an enjoyable souls rogue-lite. Game play feels great and is easy to pick up. One thing I do find funny is that they just added Skull knight from Berserk but just called him "Black knight". The game needs some tuning but is enjoyable for what it is.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is very special among many rougelike games out there because it has a quite deep spirit story-line and VERY innovative, passionate detailed made monsters and bosses and also a GREAT soullike fighting system which works absolutely fluid and makes much fun. I really recommend this game and hope it will develop further in terms of character development, skills, items and inventory so that it will be a game to play also after the Endgame.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just started playing the game and definitely a fun game to play. I really like the random upgrade system, does remind me of a couple mobile games that are fantastic at killing time. Seems like a game you can play for a while but can put down if you get life busy and then come back to and quickly readjust back to it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A solid foundation—add more customization and a stronger story, and this could really shine.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent combat design being held back by poor writing and UX design. I really feel that this game would sing if they fixed the extremely generic and convoluted sounding writing (plot is not dialog guys) and the terrible way in which game concepts are introduced.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Chinese in all the worst ways. Derivative, bland, zero fresh ideas. Dialogue and tooltips are awkwardly written. All the sounds used by the undead enemies you encounter at the beginning of the game are stolen straight from World of Warcraft, lol. Apart from all that, it's competently made. If you somehow haven't gotten tired of soulslikes or roguelikes, which comprise approximately 69% of the game releases in the past 10 years, I suppose this game is decent enough.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →fun, its pretty much hades but souls like. very focus on parrying and perfect dodges which awards the players when doing timely. only issues some bugs can be annoying. difficult but fair (most of it). one boss can be a bit annoying is serpent one which would take a while clear it compare to other boss.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Loving the game. Great aesthetics, great combat. Recommend playing if into rogue-likes. A bit repetitive after playing awhile. It's a type of game I'll binge for awhile, getting a lot of fun time out of it, and then wait until more content rolls in.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →sadly I refunded right away. the graphics are terrible. the fighting is smooth but it's not fun. Just going through the first boss was grindy and uninteresting. It's still EA. I'll wait until they add good music and better graphics. There's not even display settings at the moment
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Alrighty ! Played 3 hours so probably not the most complete feedback but here we go ! Nice game, i really enjoyed the gameplay, the combat animation and the build variety (even if i didn't tried all the options yet obviously, but the choice is here). If you like the gameplay of hades-like games you should find pleasure playing this game, difficulty doesn't seem to be such an issue, but probably build dependant (actually clean all floors with an archer buff as hell and only tanking and regen…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really enjoy this game nice roguelike enemy wave arena battler. Gameplay video will be added to this review soon. I give it a solid 8/10 review score. It is very much improved over the demo version with a blacksmith in the sanctuary town among others for aiding your journey. https://youtu.be/89O11VOVO9o?si=dVj5WNlPIZkayMyK
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Why play Netherworlds Covenants? • It’s a fast-paced, gameplay-oriented roguelike set in a dark fantasy setting. • It has an awesome parry mechanic that can completely stop enemy attacks. At times it even reminded me of the Sekiro experience. What is good? • Different weapons make you play in completely different ways. • There are many enemy types, each requiring a totally different approach. You must remember their abilities to win. • You can avoid damage in many ways: perfect dodge,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I gave it thumbs-up but it's just OK. That's it! It gets boring very fast and somehow every area feels the same. There are some good boss fights not memorable. Story sucks and maybe it's very shallow. And without a good story, repeating the same areas is not fun at all. (No motivation.) Also i do not like the UI and Hud system. Not really helpful at all. Overall i expected much more and it's not worthy for this price.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Diablo game that plays like a souls and its a roguelite? Take all the genres that I dig and throw them together? right up my alley, it's dope. It's hard, but use the mage to figure stuff out.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty embarassing to claim to "release" a game that supports Mac after being in Early Access for a while, just to have the controls be absolutely bugged to hell. Game is unplayable and an immediate refund.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I initially gave this game a good review because it has good combat and decent boss fights despite middling to bad music, graphics and sound. After trying out alternate playstyles and characters I realized that I got lucky with my starting picks and roughly half of the playstyle options are kind of bad. This wouldn't be enough to make me give it a negative review normally but then I remembered the price is a factor and I don't think this is worth $20. It's worth about half that IMO.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very cool and responsive combat. Isometric Soulslike with a bit of Hades soul - definitely worth it
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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