The Harrowing of Ash

RAISE WHAT YOU KILL

You are a necromancer, brought back after a few thousand years to a world where souls no longer go anywhere when something dies.

Fights put thousands of enemies on screen at once. Everything you kill leaves a soul, and you can raise anything with a soul.

Elites keep every trait they had when you raise them, so the one that nearly killed you can end up fighting for you.

COMMAND YOUR ARMY

Your minions fight on their own, and you direct them. Switch stances mid-fight, or order the whole pack to pounce or loose a volley of arrows. You also raise a Champion, a persistent hero minion you build up across runs.

THREE DOCTRINES
Choose a doctrine at the start of each run, and it decides what you spend souls on. Deathlord fields fewer minions and makes each one much stronger, the Champion most of all. Horde Master fields a large army of weaker minions; they die often, and you raise new ones faster than you lose them. Choirmaster rewards variety: a kind of minion your army doesn't have yet is cheap to raise, and each repeat of a kind you already have costs more than the last.

KNOWLEDGE COSTS SOULS
Between fights you travel across branching campaign maps. Shrines on the map sell what they know about why the world is rotting, and they charge the same souls you need to raise your army. You can finish the game without ever learning why.

The game has two endings, and nothing tells you which choices lead to which.

FEATURES
Raise what you kill: elites keep every trait they had

Thousands of enemies on screen at once

A persistent Champion minion: unlock new bodies and affixes and build it up across runs

Three doctrines that change what your army is for

Branching campaigns with themed stages, elite hunts, encounters and bosses

Relics, talents, and a ruined hub you rebuild between runs

Shrines that sell the story for the same souls you spend on power

Two endings