Hell Clock: Cursed War expansion adds a fourth act and a lightning skill worth frying everything for

Hell Clock, the indie roguelike action RPG from Rogue Snail, just got its Cursed War expansion — a new fourth act that was deliberately delayed to avoid launching head-to-head with Path of Exile 2's latest season. That timing decision alone tells you everything about how well Rogue Snail understands its audience.

Cursed War rewinds the story to Pajeu's origins, showing how he was conscripted into the Brazilian army as a slave during the Paraguayan War. That backstory gives the fury driving the base game's revenge narrative a much sharper edge — especially when the third act's atrocities hit again on a second playthrough. The expansion also introduces new skills, including Tupã's Wrath, a lightning ability that fires bolts in every direction and scales in wild ways depending on what relics you find. One relic channels the lightning into empowering skeletal minions; another combination the reviewer stumbled into on the first run builds a defensive shield while spamming thousands of bolts. Bosses aside, nothing else comes close to touching you.

Hell Clock has been quietly building on its foundation since launch. Movement has been overhauled — full WASD or click-to-move, your call — bosses hit significantly harder, and Rogue Snail added a crafting system that borrows ideas from Path of Exile's own crafting layer, letting you shore up defenses in ways that matter more as difficulty climbs. The game's core loop is deliberately approachable: clear rooms, stack damage, watch enemies explode. The buildcrafting depth is there for players who want it, but normal difficulty never forces you to engage with it seriously. What sets Hell Clock apart from most action RPGs in the genre is its setting — a fictionalized account of the War of Canudos, a real Brazilian historical massacre, where the demons wear names and military uniforms rather than generic hellspawn designs.

Two harder difficulty modes sit above normal for players who want the game's most powerful items and a genuine challenge, with monsters gaining elemental resistances and other modifiers that can crack even a well-constructed build. If you've been cycling through seasonal ARPGs and looking for something to fill the gap while Diablo 4 sorts itself out, Cursed War is a well-timed reason to jump in.