DaRmaZat Prove your worth. Survive the afterlife.
What happens after death? According to Grim Trials, you don’t rest—you fight. This heavy metal roguelite from developer Glory Jam throws players into the Academy, a strange underworld training ground where aspiring Grim Reapers are forged. You play as Avelin, a young woman whose life ended prematurely, now forced to carve her path through the Grim Trials. Guided by her stern mentor John and haunted by the memory of her living love, she must purify her own sins by battling the Sinful Souls that embody them. This preview is based on a hands-on demo build, giving you an early glimpse into its world and mechanics.
Death Is Only the Beginning
Avelin begins her journey as a Cocoon—an untested soul thrown into the arena of the Trials. Each run leads her deeper into arenas crawling with twisted foes, grotesque Sinful Souls, and sacrilegious bosses. Every victory inches her closer to becoming a full-fledged Reaper; every death sends her back to the Academy, stronger, stranger, and hopefully wiser.
The narrative is framed not only by your encounters in the Trial Grounds but also by your time at the Academy. Between runs, you’ll meet mentors like Pytra in the weapon room, who scoffs at your beginner’s scythe and urges you to craft better; Milyun the Spinner, who tailors your gear and apparel; and Ivanya the Witch, mistress of the cauldron, where organic, mineral, and magical essences are brewed into potions—if you’ve managed to uncover the recipes. Even Namélés, a faithful hound, provides a narrative anchor as Avelin’s monologues drift toward Timmy, the love she lost but still yearns for.
Tools of the Grim Reaper
Combat is built around Avelin’s dual-wielding scythe and crossbow, with each attack tied to snappy inputs that feel best on a controller. Crafting plays a central role: raw materials scavenged from the Trials must be smelted, hammered, stitched, or distilled into new equipment and consumables. Each discipline comes with its own timing-based mini-game, rewarding precision with higher-quality results.
On top of that, Soul Runes expand Avelin’s skill tree, offering stat boosts and abilities that carry between runs. Meanwhile, randomized Blessings from gods of death appear mid-run, letting you shape powerful builds that mix melee and ranged skills. After each cleared room, you’re presented with three cards offering temporary perks, before choosing one of several branching paths toward the next chamber. It’s a roguelite structure through and through: fight, loot, die, craft, repeat.
Heavy Metal Mayhem, Rough Edges in the Afterlife
Grim Trials‘s presentation leans hard into its aesthetic. The soundtrack is a wall of crushing metal riffs, occasionally dropping into slower, ominous passages that wouldn’t feel out of place in Doom. Visually, the saturated palette is striking but sometimes overwhelming—bright effects blur together, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish enemies from environmental objects. Frame rate in the demo was capped at 60 FPS, with no way to unlock, and performance could use tightening.
While the core ideas are promising, the demo reveals some balancing issues. Combat feels somewhat sluggish compared to genre standouts like Hades, with heavy attacks saddled by long cooldowns that lack proper visual feedback. Too often you’re left spamming light attacks, unsure why your scythe won’t swing again.
Enemy hitboxes are unforgiving, making attacks miss more often than they should, and without a lock-on system, precision becomes frustrating. Worse still, new sections of the map sometimes spawn Avelin directly into a cluster of enemies, causing unavoidable damage before you can even react. Combined with the lack of fluidity in her dash and melee attacks, fights can feel more punishing than fair.
Preliminary Thoughts
Grim Trials has the makings of something special: a distinctive heavy metal vibe, an underworld Academy full of strange mentors, and a roguelite loop centered on meaningful crafting. The demo shows flashes of brilliance—particularly in the weapon-forging mini-games and the interplay of scythe and crossbow combat—but also rough edges that dull the fun. Slow cooldowns, punishing spawn logic, and lack of enemy clarity make battles feel more cumbersome than exhilarating. There’s plenty of potential buried in this underworld, but the Trials still need sharpening before Avelin’s tale can truly reap its reward.
Additional Information
Release Date: TBA
Reviewed On: PC. Download code provided by the publisher and PR agency.
Developer: Glory Jam
Publisher: Soft Source, Neon Doctrine
Website: Grim Trials
Relevant links: Grim Trials on STEAM
