Haunted Lands

Haunted Lands is a cheap, bloody, DOS-inspired action platformer about slaying cultists and nightmarish creatures across a gothic, cursed world, released by developer alevgor through publisher Alawar on 10 March 2026 at $5.99. It's the kind of game that leans hard into a specific, deliberately unforgiving old-school aesthetic — and this review's sample shows that pitch landing well with some players while a real, specific, recurring complaint about control and difficulty fairness turns others away before they finish it.

A DOS-era throwback that mostly nails its target feel

Reviewers who click with Haunted Lands describe exactly the retro sensation it's going for. One review, delivered as a video link with a brief caption, called it out plainly: "Hitting the DOS retro hard but still having smooth responsive controls is a good combo even outside the general nostalgia play." That's a meaningfully different read on the controls than the negative sample offers, and it points to the game's central tension — what feels appropriately old-school and demanding to one player reads as simply stiff and unfair to another.

The strongest single endorsement in this review's sample comes from a player who logged an astonishing 12,489 minutes — nearly 208 hours — with the game. Their review frames a sewer-themed maze section as the only real frustration in an otherwise "awesome" experience, and closes by specifically praising the developer: "The game developer is a one-man army of amazing talent and there is so much more to do with this world." That level of engagement from a single player, sustained over hundreds of hours, is a meaningful data point about how deep the core loop can hook the right kind of player, even in a review sample this small.

The recurring problem: controls and unfair difficulty

Set against that is a specific complaint that dominates this review's negative sample. One reviewer wrote that "the stiff controls coupled with insta-kills and long gauntlet sections lead to a non-enjoyable experience," concluding "unless you like grindy tough old school experiences... I'd say pass on this one." Another described a specific, frustrating pattern: "Successfully dodging 5 things in rapid succession only to have a sixth thing spawn right on top of you just isn't fun. Actually that's the opposite of satisfying," comparing the experience to "a chore designed by a jerk that played his game so long he got really impressed or bored with his own runs." A third negative review detailed specific mechanical friction: "awkward pauses after attacks," inconsistent airborne states after simply walking off a platform, and attack mechanics that only work correctly for one specific character.

This isn't a complaint this review has to take purely on reviewer word. Steam's own achievement data backs it up in aggregate: while 77.4% of players clear the tutorial, the explicit ALL_CLEAR achievement for full completion sits at just 1.2% globally — a steep attrition curve consistent with a game whose difficulty and control friction genuinely stop most players well short of the end, whatever the exact mix of causes.

A developer who has acknowledged the problem directly

Notably, this isn't a complaint the developer has ignored. Steam's partner-events feed shows a March 2026 update explicitly stating: "we're currently working on adding additional checkpoints, which will be optional and can be enabled or disabled in the settings. This feature will arrive in one of the upcoming updates." That promise was delivered two months later in Update 1.0.9, which added save statues and health-restoration points directly into levels, along with specific adjustments to at least one boss fight to make it "more dynamic." That's about as direct a developer response to a fairness complaint as Steam-sourced material can offer — a public admission of the gap, followed by a shipped fix — though because this review's negative sample predates the update, this review cannot confirm from the data available how much the checkpoint system has actually softened the "unforgiving gauntlet" experience reviewers described.

The developer's other post-launch work reinforces a picture of active, responsive support for what reads as a very small team: fixing a crash tied to the CRT filter, resolving camera issues, closing an exploit in one mission, and adding official Steam trading cards, profile backgrounds, and emoticons — the kind of ongoing investment uncommon for a $5.99 release.

A minor, isolated sound complaint

One negative reviewer specifically flagged the soundtrack: "The music is pretty grating," in a review that otherwise focused on sprite animation and controls in the game's opening levels. No other review in this sample echoes that specific complaint, and with such a small English-language sample (six reviews total against 273 all-language reviews), this review treats it as a single data point rather than a broader pattern, while still noting it as the only direct comment on audio design available.

Technical presentation beyond the core complaint

Away from the controls debate, Haunted Lands' Steam page lists full controller support, DualShock and DualSense-specific support, and Steam Input API support, alongside Steam Cloud saves and trading-card integration — a reasonably complete technical package for a $5.99 indie release from what reads as a very small team. None of the reviews in this sample specifically praised or criticized controller play over keyboard and mouse, so this review can't confirm whether a gamepad meaningfully changes the control-friction complaints raised above, but the option is there for players who want to try it.

Verdict

Haunted Lands is a cheap, atmospheric, unmistakably DOS-inspired action platformer that rewards players willing to meet its old-school difficulty on its own terms — and punishes, sometimes unfairly according to multiple reviewers, those who aren't. The developer's willingness to publicly name the checkpoint gap and then ship a fix for it is a genuinely good sign for a small team, even if this review can't yet confirm how well that fix has landed. At its low price, it's a reasonable gamble for retro-platformer fans specifically drawn to punishing difficulty; anyone hoping for a smoother, more forgiving experience should wait to see how the post-checkpoint reception develops.