Serpent's Gaze Review

A Souls-like Roguelite Built From the Ground Up for Co-op

Serpent's Gaze throws one to four players into a punishing, run-based desert full of tough enemies and relentless bosses, blending Dark Souls-style combat with roguelite class and relic progression, all playable seamlessly in online co-op. It's the debut project from Feeble Minds, a studio whose pedigree drew immediate attention, one reviewer noted the marketing leaned on the fact that it's "from people who made goat sim and satisfactory who had left and formed Feeble Minds." At review time the game sat at 750 positive reviews against 90 negative, a "Very Positive" 89 percent score across 840 total reviews, an unusually strong reception for an Early Access debut. One reviewer's blunt math summed up the value case well: "For $15, Serpent's Gaze is a great deal. It runs VERY well, has Soulslike combat mixed with roguelike progression and is fun. There's a surprising amount here for the price: 14 classes, 14 weapons, and maybe 30+ relics."

Everyone Reaches for the Same Comparison: Elden Ring Nightreign

If there's one reference point that comes up again and again, across both positive and negative reviews, it's FromSoftware's own co-op roguelite. "Simply put, play Nightreign instead," wrote one critical reviewer who still praised the "seamless co-op with friends." Another framed the comparison more charitably: "i absolutely love this game. its like dark souls meets roguelike. The level design, character design, art style and music are all fantastic!" A third called it, less kindly, "almost like a ps2 version of nightreign," pointing to clunkier combat feel and more random-feeling difficulty spikes. That constant comparison cuts both ways, it signals the game is chasing a genuinely exciting design space, but it also means every rough edge gets measured against one of the most polished multiplayer releases in recent memory.

Co-op Is the One Thing Almost Nobody Complains About

Across dozens of reviews, positive and negative alike, the actual multiplayer experience draws consistent, almost begrudging praise. Even a reviewer who otherwise tore the game apart conceded the point: "Unintuitive combat, Sound design -- if you can call it that -- is non existent, Enemy designs that are clearly lifted from other games, Co-op experience is flawless though." Another player who called the game merely "good" rather than great still singled it out: "Fun co-op souls like that has a good challenge to it." For a genre where drop-in, drop-out multiplayer is notoriously hard to get right, that's a real technical achievement, whatever else players think of the rest of the package.

The Recurring Criticism: Classes and Weapons Lack Identity

The most specific, repeated complaint in the negative review pool is that the roguelite systems don't yet differentiate meaningfully. "I was sorely disappointed when I discovered that each class is functionally identical, save for the relic and their passive stats," one reviewer wrote after unlocking a full roster. Weapon feel drew similarly pointed criticism: "the melee combat is way to soft/floated. There is absolutely zero weight behind the strikes, which was a total buzzkill," and another summarized flatly, "every weapon is a puddle with how shallow they are, the classes have no identity." Level variety came under fire too, "the levels don't change so runs start to feel way too same," undercutting the roguelite promise of runs that feel meaningfully different from each other.

Enemy Design Splits the Room

Combat encounter design is the other flashpoint. Several reviewers singled out specific mechanics they found more frustrating than challenging, "fatigue armor is a very annoying mechanic that turns every enemy into a damage sponge," and another piled on with a list of grievances: "an enemy that heals all the other spawns infinitely and is fully silent, bosses that spawn endless enemies and the ability for every enemy to get hyper armor on everything where hitting them more is the solution." Not every player agreed the difficulty was miscalibrated, several praised the challenge as a selling point on its own, but the specificity and repetition of the health-scaling and armor-mechanic complaints across independent reviewers suggests genuine encounter-design friction rather than isolated skill issues.

An Early Access Game That Reads Like One

Several reviewers explicitly framed their criticisms through the lens of the game's Early Access status, treating rough edges as forgivable given the label rather than damning on their own. "The game is good. The atmosphere is really cool, the soulslike gameplay can be fun, and the roguelike elements can make for some interesting runs. That said, there's a lot to dislike. It's forgivable, as it is in early access, but it would be better to play the game once it's actually out," one wrote. Update logs bear that framing out too, the developers have shipped a steady stream of patches and a full weapon-and-progression update through September 2026, including a "Perfect block & Randomized Paths" overhaul aimed directly at the sameness complaints. Not every reviewer extends that patience, one skeptic wrote pointedly, "it hides behind the fact that it is early access like a lot of tittles now adays," but the visible pace of updates gives the more generous read real weight.

Verdict

Serpent's Gaze is a genuinely promising co-op roguelite built on a strong foundation, its multiplayer holds up under nearly universal praise, its price-to-content ratio is generous even by Early Access standards, and its atmosphere and art direction land consistently. What holds it back from greatness right now is exactly what you'd expect from a title eight months into Early Access, classes and weapons that don't yet feel meaningfully distinct, level layouts that repeat too readily, and a handful of enemy mechanics, fatigue armor and infinite-heal spawns chief among them, that read as frustrating rather than fair. If you're going in expecting a finished, Nightreign-level roguelite, temper your expectations; if you're going in as an Early Access buyer backing a studio with a visible, active patch cadence and a genuinely fun co-op core, Serpent's Gaze is an easy recommendation at its price.