HALLPASSResearch Play the game

Themes · complaint churn

Progression grind

Unlocks take too long; currency trickles; time gates.

In HALL PASS

What responds to it.

Scoreboard cluster 02 Progression grind: August SAFE-ish, now Shipped 70% our estimate

Per game

Where it shows up on Steam.

Weighted count in each game's reviews, with the share of that side and the median hours of the reviewers who raised it.

In negative reviews

  1. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor1,54823.4% · median 32h · 730 reviews
  2. Megabonk5417.6% · median 20h · 277 reviews
  3. Soulstone Survivors46819.7% · median 24h · 209 reviews
  4. Death Must Die39313.6% · median 22h · 177 reviews
  5. Halls of Torment25712.8% · median 16h · 113 reviews
  6. Vampire Survivors2265.1% · median 16h · 111 reviews
  7. 20 Minutes Till Dawn1345.5% · median 8h · 59 reviews
  8. Brotato672.6% · median 45h · 31 reviews
  9. Geometry Wars 3195.4% · median 6h · 7 reviews
  10. Crimsonland123.5% · median 1h · 5 reviews

Per community

Where it shows up on Reddit.

CommunityIn request threadsIn praiseIn complaintsIn quit sentences
r/vampiresurvivors——8,803 3,817 items10 6 sentences
r/roguelites——7,994 3,626 items31 14 sentences
r/roguelikes——8,269 3,403 items6 3 sentences
r/brotato——1,195 502 items0 0 sentences
r/SoulstoneSurvivors——603 277 items0 0 sentences
r/hallsoftorment——485 224 items0 0 sentences
r/DeathMustDie——479 233 items2 1 sentences
r/20MinutesTillDawn——61 30 items0 0 sentences

In their words

The highest-weighted reviews that matched.

Truncated to the first few hundred characters as they were in the harvest reports. The weight beside each is one plus the natural log of one plus its helpful votes.

I cannot recommend the game anymore. It is a pity as it was a very fun game with a good game loop. Buy since last patch the grind needed to unlock the power ups that will allow you to play the most challenging content is hundreds of hours, of the same repetitive content. Still on
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor · 33h playedw 7.7
I generally don't like giving negative reviews, but the price-point for the genre vs the experience is just not it. So Soulstone Survivors looks great at first glance. It's got good visuals, seemingly tons of customisation, good controls. So why, then, do I not recommend it? This
Soulstone Survivors · 1h playedw 7.4
UPDATE 2/25: More thoughts at the bottom of the review. It's very hard for me to give a negative review because I really do love what this game wants so badly to be, and I love DRG and the guys that made it, but in its current state, I simply can't recommend it (DISCLAIMER: Yes,
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor · 98h playedw 7.3
The opening hours were great. Characters seemed unique, movement was fun to perform and a good run really made you feel strong. I still feel like each characters level-up bonuses provide a strong baseline to experiment. I don't mind the humour. It's not too distracting. You might
Megabonk · 33h playedw 6.8
In my opinion, DMD has potential to be a very cool entry into the genre but in it's current state doesn't offer fun enough gameplay, build variety and content to keep me entertained beyond the first few couple hours I've played. Pros: -diablo-esque gearing -unrestricted shop to b
Death Must Die · 6h playedw 6.6
Need to list a couple of disclaimers here: -- If you are just now considering whether to buy the game or not, DO. This is one of the best horde survival games on the market. There's a lot of content, especially with the Act II update, and you'll get your money's worth no doubt. -
Death Must Die · 25h playedw 6.3
This game does nothing better than the other superior games in the genre. It is grindy in a nonrewarding manner, repetitive, boring, and has an uninspiring generic graphical style. Let's compare it to the other games in this genre: *Where as Vampire Survivors makes you look forwa
Soulstone Survivors · 116h playedw 6.1
The game isn't really bad, it's good but as it has been pointed out by so many others, it lacks depth and variety Meta progression is grindy and honestly not worth the effort. You barely feel the difference in gameplay with runes and apparently the dev was ...
20 Minutes Till Dawnw 5.9
Pretty disappointed by this "remake"... if you could even call it that. This game has some new perks and a few new game modes, but that's about all that is new. All of the sound effects and music, for example, are 100% reused from the original-- in 2003, th...
Crimsonlandw 5.9
I honestly don't understand the hype. The game is just a run of the mill Vampire Survivors clone. If you want a better version that's free, then go play Holocure. The saving grace of this game is that it's only $10, but most VS clones are around that price anyways. The main issue
Megabonk · 1h playedw 5.2
The game is your average bullet hell survival game, so if you're a veteran of this genre and really into it, buy this game; you won't regret it. However, if you're not, or maybe this would be your first experience, there are other games that offer a more 'pleasant' approach to th
Halls of Torment · 12h playedw 5.2
Prior to the update on 8/31/23, the game had a real feeling of accomplishment to it. When starting from scratch, the game is very challenging with a very smooth progression. The rate at which you unlock characters, achievements, and equipment is very well paced, and matched with
Halls of Torment · 50h playedw 5.1

How it was counted

The patterns that matched.

Case-insensitive regular expressions from the harvest scripts, reproduced as written. A review or sentence counts once for the theme if any pattern matches.

Steam harvester complaint

  • \bgrind\w*
  • grindy
  • unlock\w* (are|is|too|take)
  • time ?gate
  • farm\w* (gold|coins|currency)
  • progression (is|feels) slow
  • takes (forever|hours) to unlock