Overview
Orcs Must Die 3 is a third-person cooperative tower defense game without the towers. Instead, you have an arsenal of traps you can use to set up diabolical combinations of death-dealing hazards that would even make Jigsaw blush underneath his creepy mask.
Orcs Must Die is not a passive game, however. You’re free to join in the slaughter personally with various weapons and trinkets. You can play solo, but there is a very strong focus on playing the game cooperatively with a friend, and I think that’s where Orcs Must Die 3 shines the brightest.
You can find a video version of this review on YouTube!
I’ve never played the previous iterations of the series, so I can’t compare 3 to its predecessors. That said, I usually find tower defense games to be somewhat mindless and a little dull. However, I found Orcs Must Die 3 to be an engaging and clever game that managed to get me hooked on slaying hordes of Orcs. Mostly thanks to its thoughtful strategic nature and feedback-filled combat.
| Gideon’s Bias | Orcs Must Die 3 Information |
|---|---|
| Review Copy Used: No | Publisher: Robot Entertainment |
| Hours Played: 20+ | Type: Full Game |
| Reviewed On: Xbox Series X | Platforms: PC, Xbox Platforms, PlayStation 4/5 |
| Fan of Genre: No | Genre: Co-op Third Person Tower Defense |
| Mode Played: Warmage (Normal) | Price: $29.99 |
Additional Bias: I reviewed the game with all existing DLCs
Making Dorks of Orcs
The concept of an Orc is an intimidating muscle-bound figure with an angry face and large weapon. That makes it all the more amusing when you send several of them screaming through the air into a lava pit. It’s equally entertaining to bounce them off of walls or subject them to a swarm of angry bees.
That’s what makes Orcs Must Die so enjoyable. The physical way Orcs react to the traps you’ve laid. Flippers and pusher platforms send them rag-dolling. Fire causes Orcs to run around in a panic, while ice can freeze them solid. The results of your clever death maze are fed back to you in real time as the hordes of enemies walk right into your kill zones of mayhem.
At the same time, that chaos is tempered by clever gameplay that requires actual thought and strategy while leaving plenty of room for creativity. Your arsenal of unlockable traps and weapons is massive, and they can often combo together with each other and the level layouts in interesting ways.
Despite the game’s name, you will face far more than just Orcs. Each enemy type has its own elemental strengths and weaknesses. From Trolls that are weak to fire, or Fire Lords that are immune to it altogether. You have to factor those various weaknesses into your trap-laying designs. The game likes to throw curve balls at you as well. Such as allowing you to build barricades to reroute enemies, while often including Sappers that specialize in destroying those barricades
Most levels transition into defending multiple locations at once, and you can’t be everywhere at the same time, even in co-op. So you have to combine some strategic planning while adjusting it tactically mid-wave. You can come up with some pretty cool ideas. Such as the time I personally held back a horde with a life-stealing sword right in the middle of a trap-laden chokepoint. When your ideas work, it feels great.
Your own aim definitely comes into play, as some enemies are weak to headshots, and the variety of weapons perform better or worse against certain enemies or on specific levels. Using a Wind Belt to blow away smaller enemies can be quite handy on a map with plenty of pits, for example.
I tend to view a lot of tower defense games, as fire and forget. You buy some towers and they either work or they don’t. Orcs Must Die is a much more proactive game that makes you constantly engage with it and that’s great. The reactive way that enemies take damage from your traps makes the action that much more enjoyable. Watching hordes of Orcs get knocked down, lit aflame, or rag-dolled goes a long way toward keeping the combat interesting.
Campaigns, Balance, and Replayability
The base game features two campaigns and you can get a lot of play time out from those alone. Orcs Must Die 3 features multiple difficulties and a rating system that dictates how many skulls you receive. Skulls are used to unlock and upgrade traps, weapons, and trinkets. You could get a lot of extra mileage out of the game by going back to previous levels to obtain higher ratings.
What really sold me on Orcs Must Die 3, however, are the endless and scramble modes. Scramble is a randomized five-scenario game mode that offers special modifiers that accumulate over the course of the campaign. Endless mode on the other hand allows you to see just how far you can get in a single level with never-ending waves. Both modes make Orcs Must Die 3 extremely replayable once you’re done with the campaigns.
Furthermore, the sheer amount of traps, and the ways you can combo them help keep the game fresh. Although, I do have a couple of issues in this area.
Firstly, the upgrade system is pretty great overall, but also frustrating. You can respec points you have spent on upgrades as much as you want between levels. While that’s a good thing, you’re going to spend a whole lot of time doing exactly that. Different levels and enemy compositions favor different load-outs, so you’re going to be doing a lot of menu work between every single stage. At least until you have enough skulls to simply leave all of your upgrades active.
I wish I could at least do this during a level, rather than before it begins. There were many times when I spent several minutes redistributing my upgrades, only to find that one or more of the traps I planned to use would be useless once I actually started the level.
There is also an issue of balance. It should be expected that some traps will fare better on certain stages than others. Some tend to be equally strong at all times. This is especially true with a couple of the DLC traps. Such as a mass of brambles that grow itself over time, or a ceiling trap that pours gold over the Orcs making them drop additional money, which can be spent on even more traps.
The fastest way to make Orcs Must Die feel repetitive is to stick to the same load-outs and strategies level after level, but it can be hard to argue against using some of the stronger traps and weapons every time.
Verdict
Orcs Must Die 3 is a pretty great game that I really enjoyed the most when playing in co-op with my partner. Since enemies come from several directions into each level, it can feel a little bit too much like you’re scrambling to put out fires when playing alone. That same concept in co-op feels like you’re working together to patch holes in your defense, and that’s far more enjoyable.
The campaigns aren’t very long, but the game offers a ton of replay value through its scramble and endless modes. The large variety of traps, weapons, and trinkets gives you plenty of room to be creative, even if some of them tend to overshadow the others.
For me, many tower defense games feel like DPS checks against each wave, while Orcs Must Die feels active and engaging. Maybe it’s because it’s less about towers and more about traps, or perhaps it’s because of the physical nature of how the Orcs react to your traps, such as getting rag-dolled and knocked down.
Either way, Orcs Must Die 3 is a clever game that combines strategic planning, creative trap laying, cooperation, and action into a tight little package of entertaining slaughter.
