Knight Crawlers is a clever action-RPG with endearingly goofy baddies

Knight Crawlers is an action-RPG kind of thing that came out earlier this year. Having bounced off Diablo 4 a bit, I’ve still had an itch to disappear into the depths and smack skeletons around. Knight Crawlers has done me proud so far. I’m not too far in, but I’m having a great time.

Knight CrawlersPublisher: The Iterative CollectiveDeveloper: Good Morning GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on Pc.

It’s a roguelite at heart. Each journey into the procedural depths sees you creating a build as you level that lives for just that run. But any gold you collect – it may not be called gold, I’m between specs at the moment – goes back to the hub where you can spend it on permanent upgrades. And so, over time, you get further and further into the game, while each run remains charmingly distinct.

In truth, Knight Crawlers is charmingly distinct from the off. It has wonderfully wobbly physics, which means that the enemies who chase after you all totter around like eggs balanced precariously on a kitchen counter. The ragdolling as you do them in is very satisfying, and there’s a lovely gormlessness to both heroes and villains here.

The game also has some neat ideas. When you go into a new room of the dungeon, you choose when to spawn enemies, by standing on a summoning circle and pressing a button. Most rooms will need multiple spawns to be defeated in order to open the door to the next room, but you have control over the pacing to a certain extent.