Its hard for me to put this thumbs down on a series I love so much, and some experimentation and design that I really respect, but I think this game just wasn't done yet. Most of the core elements are all there, and I think that the concept of a Rogue-like formula for OMD sounds really interesting, but I feel like the game is missing some of the special OMD glue that would normally hold all of these things together. The rest of this is going to get pretty long so I'll put this bit here: If you're looking for a core OMD title kind of feel, go check out OMD 2 or 3. If you're in for an experience of a different sort with some OMD paint on it, then this might be worth considering.

From the get go the game makes more of an effort than previous titles to make sure you know how the game works, which is great, and really needed because this game adds several new systems and mechanics to interact with, each of which requires some small amount of info-dumping. The problem is that it tries to info dump all of this on you before it ever actually lets you play and experience any of the game. The game sorely needed to spread out the various systems rather than trying to dump them all on you at once, and the perfect way to do this would have been to have a one-time 3 level mission sequence, and to introduce each mechanic one at a time during that campaign at a time when you'd immediately get to apply what you just learned, thus reinforcing what you've learned. But the way that the game actually info dumps on you by forcing you to read/watch every tutorial before you can leave on your first mission, and how you're not going to get to actually use any of the progression systems until maybe 30-45 minutes later (when you've likely forgotten the information the tutorial just gave you) is a great disservice to both the game and its players. I think its likely that it was done the way that it is so that people who are looking to play with their friends for the first time take only 10 minutes before they can join up, instead of an hour, but for the solo player it's genuinely awful and even for those going multiplayer for the first time all that means is that the player jumps in having skipped every single tutorial anyway. If this was the reason the better option would have been a "defer tutorial" button for the tutorial mini-campaign.

Part of what makes OMD as a series is its general goofiness: its silly characters, self depreciating meta-humor, and wild premise. But in Death Trap a lot of that feels weirdly absent. Maybe I just haven't hit it yet (I'm not all that far in at the time of writing this), but I have no idea who any of the new characters are, how they fit into anything, why they're doing what they're doing, or really anything about them other than their mechanics. Sure they have a few voiced lines in response to winning, starting a wave, etc, but its not the same as it was getting to know the characters in OMD 1, 2 and 3. Its so empty by comparison. There doesn't seem to be any sort of story campaign, and outside of the introductory cinematic its not even totally clear what's going on in the world in general at this point.

The OMDD hub world is a disaster because I think that it misses the mark for what makes a good hub world, and strays very far into the territory of what makes a bad one. The hub is very large, and mostly empty. No one wants to walk very far to get to the progression upgrade menus in the first place, but when the journey is empty of anything interesting its even worse. Yes the hub is very pretty, but there is nothing to do there besides interact with the menus. There are great hub worlds out there, Hades and Deep Rock Galactic are both great examples of amazing hubs and each is amazing for different reasons. Hades has tons of NPC interactions and dialogue, many of which are new interactions that you've only just gained access to due to something you managed to achieve; while Deep Rock Galactic's hub focuses on silly opportunities for you to play out your character and immerse yourself in the world with your friends, it serves as both a narrative device and invites a type of creative play from its players. For a Mediocre hub look at Helldivers 2. Its not bad because its small and everything is right there, it also has some occasional things to immerse you into the attitude for having fun in the game (npcs welcoming you aboard, democracy propaganda playing at all times), and includes a very simplistic mini-game to occupy you while you wait for your friends to finish their purchases. Meanwhile the OMDD hub world has no mini games (that I've found anyway), no meaningful NPC or story dialogue to throw at you (at least not for a while), and its menus are far apart, it feels like a waste of my time rather than a natural part of play.

The process of upgrading traps in this game feels not great. In the previous title (OMD 3) each trap had a generic level up that could be done, as well as a specialization perk that could be taken. These specialization perks were great because they often changed how the trap functioned in some way that altered how you'd use the trap - these weren't huge alterations in many cases, but they were at least interesting. But OMDD removes all of the creativity in the upgrades system in favor of replacing everything with a very generic "number go up" style of upgrades. I'd speculate that this was to help give players more things to spend skulls on to make the rogue-like gameplay thing work for longer, but it still majorly misses the mark. Further, the numbers that do go up do not feel particularly impactful so rather than being this cool thing I get to look forward to - the upgrades feel like a chore that I need to sink my skulls into. This feeling is further amplified by the fact that you can get every upgrade on every trap if you simply play long enough - so there are no interesting decisions to make regarding the trap upgrades at all.

One of my personal least liked things in OMD3 was the War Mode maps. They were extra large maps with a ton of extra enemies, and a few extra war mode only traps. I disliked these missions because the experience felt less focused. The game relies heavily on the combo system as a way of making killing waves of enemies interesting. You spend time thinking about how to get the most out of an area of traps so that you can rack up the points. On the War Mode maps there are often so many enemies that they overwhelm any singular area of traps so the combos start falling apart. It makes sense for a game like OMDD to focus on larger maps due to its heavier focus on multiplayer when compared to previous titles, and I think that OMDD's maps are much better designed for their purpose than War Mode's maps were. That said, as a primarily solo player, keeping track of the huge areas and wide variety of enemy paths while working with very limited resources to deal with them is quite frustrating at times, and loses the charm of the prior titles, while also making the game take much longer to play.

I want to leave off on some positive things, because there is still a lot to love here, and there are many things that deserve praise. The character unique abilities and traps are really cool. The idea of an OMD rogue-like is quite intriguing. The specialized boss format stuff is really cool. Several of the trap reworks are awesome. The default enemy variety is crazy (though it could have been introduced a bit slower). The aesthetics of the game are on point. The switch of barricades to be a fixed number rather than something you pay for is a great idea because it solves so many problems. And many many more things have gone very right in this game.

BEAR.

Mix the formula of OMD and Roguelikes and this is what you get. Couple it with a team of devoted developers that genuinely care about the players and their feedback, this game is great.