Have a Nice Death

Have a Nice Death is a 2D roguelike action platformer in which the player takes on the role of Death himself, who, as the weary CEO of an underworld corporation, must restore order among employees who've stopped doing their jobs. The game combines fast melee and ranged combat with procedurally generated floors of the corporate underworld, where each death costs the player their progress but grants permanent upgrades that ease future runs, typical of the roguelike genre. Boss fights against the company's various departments, such as Marketing or Human Resources, rank among the game's most memorable and funniest moments.

The visual style draws on the French comic book tradition, with bold black outlines and a simple but strikingly stylized color palette, complemented by a darkly comedic atmosphere full of corporate satire. On Xbox Series X|S it launched day one on Game Pass, the game runs smoothly even during fast combat sequences, and loading between attempts is nearly instant, which suits the roguelike loop well and lets players quickly try out new weapon and ability combinations.

At launch it was praised especially for its imaginative corporate-underworld premise, style, and satirical humor, while the combat was rated as solid, though not quite groundbreaking within the crowded roguelike action genre. Even so, Have a Nice Death found its audience thanks to its original concept and visual identity, which set it apart from a number of similarly toned titles, and it keeps motivating further runs even after completion through the desire to try out as many of the available weapons as possible. The combination of dark humor, well-readable combat systems, and a gradually unfolding story about the underworld's corporate bureaucracy makes the game a refreshing spin on an already well-explored roguelike genre, in which the corporate setting of the afterlife proves an unexpectedly rewarding backdrop for dark comedy.

Why play it: For fans of roguelike action who'll be drawn in by the original corporate-underworld setting and dark humor, plus the drive to try out as many weapons as possible across further runs.