A Review
February 8, 2026
Howling with Delight
Genre: Turn-Based Strategy, Deck Builder
Play Time: 30+ Hours
I feel it’s my duty to evangelize the game that is Death Howl. Sitting at only 785 reviews on Steam (92% positive mind you), this game is far too under the radar for how good it is, and has inspired me to take a moment to reflect on just what makes this game so brilliant and memorable.
Admittedly, I am biased right out of the gate. Deck building has slowly but steadily become my favorite genre in video games over the last many years, with games like Slay the Spire, Roguebook, and Dune Imperium all captivating me for dozens of hours; Balatro was even my game of the year last year. Even so, Death Howl brings something fresh to the experience in its narrative layout and focus on deck construction.
What immediately stands out above all is the beautiful pixel art style. Artists Malte Burup and Lasse Sommer have imbued this game with a stark and dour color scheme, perfectly matching the game’s somber theme. Impressively, environmental information is clear and crisp, even when laid against a dark background. The card art has a life of its own, nudging you towards unleashing their potent effects upon the scene in front of you.
Fortunately, the mesmerizing style is matched by meaningful substance. Starting with eight core cards and only a vague sense of why you’ve been dropped into this strange world, what follows is a captivating journey with equally compelling gameplay. I didn’t expect Death Howl to leave such a large impression on me; 30+ hours later, and it might be one of my all time favorites.
So what even is a Death Howl?
I’ll leave it to the game’s creators to best describe the world they’ve created in Death Howl:
In forgotten lands shrouded by myth, Ro - a hunter from a small tribe - is overcome by grief following the death of her beloved son. Guided by voices from another world, she transcends into the realm of spirits, in hopes of bringing him back. Meet strange spirits and help them with quests and challenges that affect your deck – although not all of them may have your best interests at heart. Discover a mysterious world of forgotten lore, where darkness whispers secrets and invites you to unearth buried memories.
The proverbial "death howl" refers to the aforementioned spirits you gain after vanquishing the strange creatures you come across in the game's grid-based battle system. Here's where the party really starts. The grid-based battles are electric, challenging, and crucial to progressing through the rest of the game. You start in a single region, but the game's story pushes you to explore a dozen other regions. Getting to those regions, however, is gated by the battles. The real sand in the gears is that you have to win multiple battles in a row to access the next save point, and only then can you feel assured that your hard work has paid off and you can progress the story.
The map is divided into four primary realms, each comprised of 3 sub-sections that the player must navigate and complete to finally reach the Howling Mountain. Each realm, as well as the final mountain, culminates in an extra-challenging boss encounter - a singular enemy with unique abilities and lots of health, which forces you to really rethink your play style. To add to the challenge, even reaching the final boss requires winning a series of extra difficult “elite” encounters.
Despite this “stack your wins” structure, the game isn’t too punishing, allowing you to restart battles immediately after failure rather than resetting you back to a previous save point. This is clearly a feature the game expects you to make use of; there will be moments where you need to attempt a battle again with the same resources you had in your first attempt, simply adjusting your strategy and making better decisions. More often, however, you will be adjusting your approach to the battle altogether.
Death Building
Re-attempting battles is critical in Death Howl, because of the game’s best mechanic - deck construction. I’m used to playing “rogue-like” deck builders, where your ability to customize your deck of cards is limited to what happens within the confines of a limited gameplay loop, and you always start with the same set of cards. Since Death Howl strays from the rogue-like formula into something more narrative-focused, it also gives you the ability to fine tune the construction of your deck of cards before the battles even begin.
Only at the very beginning of the game do you have to stick with the starting cards, but you very quickly unlock new cards by winning battles and collecting "ingredients". From there you have an intriguing decision to use with your Death Howls - you can spend them along with ingredients to forge powerful new cards OR you can cash them in at a save point to earn "teardrops" which you can invest into permanent upgrades for each region.
This is truly the magic of the game. Once you have enough cards to be dangerous, the trick of building a good deck comes together. You'll find yourself defending, attacking, moving, and putting effects on enemies. You only get 20 cards to work with and draw 5 cards at a time; one bad draw can really set you back, so balancing your deck so that you get the right cards that let you move, attack, and defend all in the same turn is critical.
Best card in the game?
Finally at Peace?
One of my favorites
As the game got harder, tinkering with my deck became even more essential. Maybe I load up on movement based cards and attack from range, so enemies have a tough time getting to me and I can always stay just out of reach? Or maybe I need to focus on cards that are great in close quarters combat but that means I'm also going to need a good defense. There are plenty of options, and I was impressed by the amount of variations I came across as I unlocked new cards. There are entire strategies that I haven't even tried and would love to tinker with in a future replay.
There's an inherent "grindiness" to this game that might not be for everyone. If you love the deck building and card play, though, the grind doesn't really feel like a grind. One of the things I was most impressed with, and your mileage may vary, is that I never felt like I was grinding for grinding's sake.
Every tough battle, or region, encouraged me to advance to unlock critical new cards or abilities. I wasn't so over-powered by one region that I blew through another region; I wasn't so underpowered that I kept beating my head against the wall. It was really well balanced in terms of what you unlock, when, and how that feeds into the games overall engine.
Layered on top of the magnificent deck building are mechanics I haven’t even yet found the time to describe - totems, tear drops, curses, quests! Needless to say, the decision space and variability of strategies I encountered in my more than 30 hours with the game delivered consistent thrills and challenges.
Though the gameplay is the ultimate draw here, I’d be remiss not to give the story major plaudits for how it managed to tell an engaging and poignant story with minimalist dialogue, never overstaying its welcome. The grief and anguish that the main character Ro feels is somewhat paralleled by the struggle you feel as the player overcoming the challenges in this world. And I won't spoil the ending, of course, but it feels really earned, and right for this character.
Death Howl is an awesome experience if you're a fan of the deck building genre. If you're not, don't be fooled - this isn't one of the dozens of rogue-like deck building wannabes. Death Howl firmly establishes its own place in pantheon of great card games, crafting an experience that won’t soon be forgotten.
