Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot Switch Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
I haven’t had much experience with the autobattler genre, except for Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, and let’s just say it didn’t exactly blow my socks off. When Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot popped into my inbox, I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it a go, given my previous autobattler experiences had left the genre a bit tarnished in my eyes. But, much like the fantasy trope of dwarves mining for precious stones, I’m so glad I found this amazing gem. What’s It Like? Assemble your army, gear them up, and prepare to lose your spare time as we dive into Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot on Nintendo Switch.
Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot is light on narrative, and that works in its favour. Your motivation is simple: orcs are bad, smash them before they smash you. It is an autobattler roguelike that sees you build up a raiding party of dwarves and lead them toward glory, death, and of course, loot. While the premise is straightforward and can look simple at first glance, Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot ends up being far deeper than bedrock. You begin by selecting your clan. These are essentially save slots tied to the roguelike progression of your rune circle, but more on that later. From there, you start with a small group of dwarves and choose one of three encounter cards. Each card previews the enemies you will face, the experience you will earn, a gold bounty, and the biome you will travel to. Early on, these details can feel minor, but as the game slowly reveals its systems, progression becomes far more deliberate. Each biome influences the loot you find, shop inventory, and available upgrades. Encounters, shop items, and new recruits all follow the same three-card format and can be rerolled for a price, reinforcing a consistent and easy-to-understand structure.
Loot plays a central role and is heavily tied to the shop system. By spending gold, you can level up your shop to unlock new tiers of gear and increased item rarity. Early stages encourage a more reckless approach, slapping whatever gear you can find onto your dwarves while trying to survive increasingly large enemy groups. Later runs become far more methodical. Party positioning, gear sets, and long-term strategy start to matter a great deal. Twenty hours in, I was still learning in the best possible way, prioritising veteran recruits, retiring my existing heroes, redistributing their experience, and equipping my new lineup with carefully chosen items to push their stats even further. Combat itself is largely hands-off, playing out through procs, critical hits, and stats. You can still issue limited commands during battle, including retreating, stopping healing to charge, or speeding the game up. While the obvious goal is to defeat your enemies before they overwhelm you, there is also a surprisingly tactical element at play. Weight and speed affect how units push against each other, creating an almost football-like struggle for ground. Push enemies far enough back, and they enter a death zone where they take significantly more damage. I experienced several battles that became stalemates in terms of damage and healing, only winning because my heavy frontline slowly forced the enemy backward.
Failure is inevitable, but it is far from punishing. Gems collected during your run are used to unlock runes in your rune circle, which persist into future attempts. These runes unlock new character classes and item sets, allowing for increasingly powerful and specialised armies. Why settle for a basic healer when you can unlock a war priest? Knights can be upgraded into paladins for a stronger frontline, and formations add another layer of depth. Passive bonuses activate based on party composition, such as the berserker formation for units wielding two-handed weapons, or the crusader bonus for holy units like war priests and paladins. Even now, it feels like I have only scratched the surface of fully optimising my army. Once you feel confident you have optimised them, raids become available. These optional encounters function as boss fights and can be tackled at any time, offering substantial gold rewards and valuable gems for your rune circle, making them tempting but risky. There is a lot to optimise and experiment with here, and that core loop is dangerously compelling. As I write this review, the game is still running on a second screen while I attempt to fine-tune my team for just one more victory.
Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot uses a clean pixel art style that is simple yet effective. There is often a lot happening on screen, and battles can quickly become chaotic explosions of arrows, magic, and destruction. When combat is sped up, this can even feel a little comical at times. Thankfully, the game offers a good amount of visual customisation. Health bars, damage numbers, DPS charts, and the army overview along the bottom of the screen can all be toggled on or off, helping keep things readable when the action ramps up. Unfortunately, there are some minor performance issues on Nintendo Switch. At the start of most battles, there is a noticeable pause lasting a second or two on both Switch and Switch 2 hardware. On Switch, this pause occurs just before combat begins, while on Switch 2, it happens right as the battle starts. The original Switch also experiences some slowdown during later stages when combat is set to 4× speed. In my opinion, this is not a major issue given how the game is played, but it is worth noting. While the brief pause at the start of battles is noticeable, it does not significantly impact the overall experience.
For my Dwarven warriors looking into accessibility, there are a couple of display options here to reduce on-screen clutter, as well as the ability to disable screen shake. These simple toggles help make the action easier to follow, especially during hectic battles. Unfortunately, Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot doesn’t utilise the touch screen, which feels like a natural fit for its interface. Instead, you navigate menus using the right stick to select tabs and buttons to confirm, which can be a bit daunting at first. Once you get used to it, though, it works well enough, all things considered. As always, I recommend further research into finding out if Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot suits your needs.
At $22.50 AUD, or currently on sale for under $15, Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot will keep you glued to your screen for hours. It is a deceptively deep and engaging experience that quickly pulls you into a loop of optimisation, experimentation, and the occasional run carried purely by dumb luck. I will admit the first hour felt a little slow. Not because the game lacks depth, but because I genuinely did not know what I was doing yet. Once the systems began to click, every run became purposeful, each with a clear strategy in mind. Right now, that strategy is entirely focused on bringing down a dragon boss that has already ended more than a few promising attempts. I have been playing Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot almost nonstop since installing it on my Nintendo Switch. I am lacking sleep. All I can see are DPS charts. I am overtired… and I cannot wait to start again.
For glory!
So, What’s it Like? Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot is like Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, but with a lot more depth.
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