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Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse Game Cover
89%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:gameplay, graphics
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, replayability
89% User Score Based on 167 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchXbox Series X|SPCPlaystation 5Playstation 4XboxWindowsPlayStation
Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse Game Cover

About Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse is a single player and multiplayer hack and slash game with fantasy, anime and dark fantasy themes. It was developed by Frontside 180 and was released on March 4, 2026. It received positive reviews from players.

A Metroidvania x Roguelite, where you advance using a cursed hat. Use a variety of magic or possess your enemies to reach the lowest levels! Bring back loot, build new facilities in your village, make a living and strengthen yourself for the next battle! Supports up to 4-player multiplayer.

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Games Like Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse

Looking for games like Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse? Here are top hack and slash recommendations with a fantasy, anime and dark fantasy focus, selected from player-similarity data — start with Wizard With a Gun, Rotwood or The Swords of Ditto.

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Reviews

89%Audience ScoreBased on 167 reviews
gameplay43 positive mentions
grinding29 negative mentions

  • Charming and beautiful art style with expressive animations and pleasant music that enhances the game's atmosphere.
  • Smooth and satisfying combat mechanics with fun possession mechanic adding strategic variety.
  • Engaging base building and crafting systems provide a cozy and rewarding progression that complements the roguelike and metroidvania elements.
  • Well-designed levels with thoughtful layouts and replayability, including branching paths and secrets to discover.
  • Enjoyable multiplayer/co-op experience with smooth connections and scaling difficulty, promoting play with friends.
  • Developers are responsive and actively update the game, fixing bugs and implementing quality-of-life improvements.
  • Procedurally generated dungeons lack sufficient variety; many rooms and layouts repeat frequently causing the gameplay to feel repetitive.
  • The progression pacing is slowed by mandatory replays of dungeon sections and considerable grinding for materials and upgrades.
  • Certain mechanics and UI elements lack clarity or polish, such as unclear crafting recipes, limited possession options, and unintuitive base building interface.
  • Some bosses have excessive health making fights feel like long sponges, reducing pacing and tension.
  • Controls and movement can sometimes feel stiff or clunky, with occasional input issues affecting gameplay fluidity.
  • Multiplayer progression is partly segregated, requiring separate grinding and lacking shared unlocks or inventory leading to inconvenience.
  • gameplay

    102 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    42% positive mentions, 49% neutral mentions, 9% negative mentions

    Gameplay is generally praised for its smooth, fun, and rewarding combat with unique mechanics like possession of enemies, which adds variety and freshness. However, some find the roguelike progression and base-building elements grindy or clunky, with certain mechanics feeling underused or needing better explanation. The blend of metroidvania, roguelike, and town-building offers an enjoyable experience, though a few players note pacing and difficulty spikes impact the overall flow.

    • “The bosses were super fun, the design was beautiful and the gameplay was amazing.”
    • “The gameplay overall is very smooth and feels rewarding when you learn how to time your attacks and find openings in your opponent's attack patterns whether they be the frequent mobs or the bosses you come across.”
    • “A unique combination of mechanics I've never seen put into a metroidvania with unlockable attack and movement upgrades but also creature possessing mechanic that changes your abilities and movement and serves as a second health bar. Combat and movement is tight, solid enemy variety though I'd like to see more possessable enemies in a future update. The art style's quite good, with a fast travel system built into the dungeons to help speed gameplay up. I can easily recommend this game for fans of Hollow Knight or if you liked its style but were put off by the greater difficulty you'll like this.”
    • “One of the core mechanics (hat jump) is clunky and disrupts the overall flow of the game.”
    • “This game had everything it needed to be one of the best metroidvanias ever made, but it fell short because of the roguelike mechanics.”
    • “The basebuilding sections between actual gameplay are probably the worst I've ever experienced, especially as someone that doesn't like gathering resources, waiting for things to build, or gating upgrades behind resources that randomly drop from specific stages.”
  • graphics

    43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    44% positive mentions, 49% neutral mentions, 7% negative mentions

    The game features a charming, cute, and whimsical art style often compared to Hollow Knight, with beautiful visuals and smooth animations that enhance gameplay. While the graphics are praised for their aesthetic appeal and readability, some users note limited graphics settings and occasional pixelation in background art. Overall, the graphics are a strong point that contribute to the game's unique identity and enjoyable experience.

    • “On the other hand, I absolutely loved the graphics. It reminds me of Hollow Knight and everything looks beautiful.”
    • “[h3]Nevergrave: The Witch and the Curse[/h3] stands out immediately thanks to its beautiful and charming art style.”
    • “All the animations are top tier, the movement feels great, and I loved the art style of the game.”
    • “The mechanics, art style, and overall feel of the game really clash.”
    • “Pocket pair's other games like Craftopia and Palworld can benefit from high-end hardware, but Never Grave has very limited graphics settings, meaning you can't push it beyond its default visuals.”
    • “The graphics are basic but readable, which helps during fights.”
  • grinding

    29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The game features a fun combat and farming system but involves a significant amount of repetitive material collection that can slow progression and feel tedious, especially for upgrade and crafting purposes. While the farming and building aspects add depth, some players find them basic or underdeveloped compared to the combat, and unclear material drop locations add to the challenge. Overall, it blends roguelite gameplay with farm/crafting mechanics, appealing to those who don't mind repetitive resource gathering but may frustrate players preferring skill-based progression.

    • “It's a little grindy with some upgrades needing stupid amounts of materials, but nothing too exaggerated. The big fault is that it doesn't show who or where drops what material, and some stuff is very hidden.”
    • “A simple and relatively fun 2D sidescrolling pseudo-metroidvania roguelite held back by the massive amount of material farming.”
    • “I really enjoy the roguelite gameplay portion of the game, but the material farming for the skill tree was such a chore, making the game's progression insanely slow.”
  • music

    22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    64% positive mentions, 22% neutral mentions, 14% negative mentions

    The music is consistently praised for being pleasant, fitting well with the game’s atmosphere, and enhancing the charming art style with relaxing and beautiful tracks. While some users find the soundtrack limited or occasionally repetitive, overall it is considered a strong and enjoyable aspect of the experience. A few suggest adding more variety and adaptive elements to further enrich the audio design.

    • “There is a lot to like in the gameplay, as well in the artstyle and (despite having few tracks) the music is very pleasant and fits well with the game.”
    • “The art style is really cute, the music is awesome and the coop gameplay is a really fun experience.”
    • “It offers gentle, relaxing music that sets a calm atmosphere for your journey.”
    • “What I do find lacking is the soundtrack and some audio cues for actions.”
    • “My recommendation for the devs is to fix the audio actions first, and then for an easy yet utterly effective approach to the music: add onto the area music with new verses and have more instrumentation added the deeper you get into the run.”
    • “You've already done adaptive music well enough with entering water; I believe you guys can have it update based on the floor you're on for a dungeon.”
  • replayability

    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    50% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 50% negative mentions

    The game offers solid replayability through relic-based upgrades that unlock new areas and extensive building and upgrade systems, encouraging multiple playthroughs. While dungeon layouts can become repetitive, the blend of metroidvania and roguelike elements provides enough variety for a lengthy experience, especially when aiming for 100% completion or playing cooperatively. However, some players note limited weapon variety may slightly impact replay value.

    • “They're incredibly well laid out, and also have replayability when you get relics (upgrades) to go back and access areas of the map that you couldn't reach before.”
    • “Only small downside is that the dungeons get repetitive a little quickly, but it still offers way enough replayability for the price - even if only for the extensive building and upgrade systems.”
    • “Lots of replayability to go back and obtain all missing items.”
    • “The dungeons get repetitive a little quickly, limiting replayability despite the extensive building and upgrade systems.”
    • “There isn't a ton of replayability unless you want to 100% the game or start over with a new friend.”
    • “You only get one melee weapon, which restricts variety and replayability in a roguelite game.”
  • story

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    75% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 25% negative mentions

    The story is simple and minimal, providing a basic setup without much complexity or deep storytelling. While some players appreciate the straightforward narrative and focus on gameplay, others wish for more dialogue, lore, and character development to enrich the experience.

    • “Simple story and good gameplay. Please add a sequel for her upcoming adventure since she's going to leave the village.”
    • “The story isn't complex nor did it need to be.”
    • “I honestly wish there were more dialog or lore in the game. I like a lot of the character designs and wish I could put a story behind the characters, but this is a fun game to kind of just grind out and play till 3am.”
    • “There's barely any storytelling; you get a basic setup and that's pretty much it.”
  • humor

    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The humor in the game is enhanced by cute drawings, amusing animations, and playful character reactions. Players also find enjoyment in funny bugs and the experience of playing with others, contributing to an overall fun and lighthearted atmosphere.

    • “Just took down the boss of gardens and it was hilarious to finally beat him!”
    • “The drawing is cute and the animations are funny, especially when she shakes her head or shrugs.”
    • “There were some funny bugs on launch, and it's just overall quite fun with more people.”
  • emotional

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    Users found the emotional experience hindered by repetitive boss encounters and mandatory backtracking, which diminished the sense of exploration and enjoyment during progression.

  • stability

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The game demonstrates strong stability, with users reporting no bugs or glitches during their playthroughs.

  • character development

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    Users appreciate the character designs but feel that character development is limited due to a lack of dialogue and lore. They wish for more story elements to better connect with the characters, although they still find the game enjoyable for casual play.

  • atmosphere

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The atmosphere is characterized by gentle, relaxing music that creates a calm and soothing environment for the player's journey.

    • “It offers gentle, relaxing music that sets a calm atmosphere for your journey.”
  • optimization

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game features excellent optimization, offering smooth performance with no crashes or bugs. Controls are responsive and well-tuned, contributing to an overall seamless experience.

    • “Music is good, controls are tight, performance is perfect, no crashes or bugs encountered.”
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Play Times

133h Median play time
105h Average play time
50-160h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 2 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse is a hack and slash game with fantasy, anime and dark fantasy themes. Common tags for Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse include indie, magic, metroidvania, action roguelike, 2d and others.

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5 and others.

On average players spend around 105 hours playing Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse.

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse was released on March 4, 2026.

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse was developed by Frontside 180.

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse has received positive reviews from players. Most players liked Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse for its gameplay but disliked it for its grinding.

Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Wizard With a Gun, Rotwood, The Swords of Ditto, Ravenswatch, Trinity Fusion and others.