He is Coming is a roguelite auto battler that invites players into a cryptic world filled with tension and relentless challenge. The game leans into minimalist design with eerie environments, enemy encounters, and various boss fights.
It was developed by Chronocle and published by Hooded Horse, with its core gameplay loop a classic roguelite: dive in, fight through procedurally generated areas, die, and try again. He is Coming offers refined pacing and a variety of unlockable items. But now i tell you more about it.
Table of Contents
Combat
Combat in He is Coming is finely tuned for players who thrive on trial and error. Learning the items and finding synergies are the foundation of survival here. Your health (heart), attack (sword), armor (shield), and speed (feet) can be increased based on items or buffs. After defeating an enemy, you get one gold.
A wide variety of weapons and abilities are available to unlock across multiple runs. Early choices can alter your build and playstyle. Want to go all-in on speed with a pair of spectral daggers?
Or would you rather go for an armor/regeneration build? The game accommodates diverse strategies, and players can slowly unlock combos by having similar-themed items in their inventory.
Enemies are random animals with various abilities, such as stealing gold or ignoring your armor. This dynamic keeps each run feeling fresh and interesting. At night, enemies chase you as you move on the map, so make sure you have enough health or heal at a campfire.
You cannot flee a fight, so either you win or die at the hands of the enemy. After understanding the items and vital locations, your chances will be better of making it to the later rounds, but be prepared to die multiple times.
Map and Locations to Visit
There are various items and shops to visit. Treasure chests can give weapons or items. Watpoints let you return to this spot if you’ve already been there. Golem and other special places where you combine items to get stronger items. Making use of these combo places is the key to winning.
Key areas:
- Blade Oils give a choice between increasing weapon 1 Attack, Armor, or Speed. Refreshes if the weapon is changed. Each oil can only be applied once per weapon.
- Campfires- Spend the night and gain 10 health.
- Bargaining Tents offer a choice of 2 Rare items that can be bought for 5 Gold.
- Lookout Towers reveal the map in a 13-tile radius around the tile.
- Traveling Merchant has a selection of 5 Rare and 1 Heroic rarity items that can be bought using gold. Rerolls cost increasing amounts of gold if used.
For example, the hero’s grave shows purple in the right corner, meaning it’s a heroic rarity item. You are not able to combine these items.
The day and night system shows the player how long to wait before boss fights. At night, visibility decreases, and enemies chase you, but campfires are active.
Making use of the map is important because you can only take 1 step at a time, and you can preview waypoints by scrolling on the unexplored parts of the map.
Bosses
Boss battles are the dramatic crescendo of He is Coming. These encounters test your understanding of the game, with over 30 bosses to defeat. Each boss is designed with a specific ability or concept, which players must learn and adapt to, often through multiple deaths. You can preview which boss you will face, but you have limited steps to get stronger before facing it.
Just before facing a boss, there will be a stomping noise/effect to show that a strong enemy is coming towards you. This adds to the feeling of impending doom.
What makes these bosses unforgettable is the sheer variety. They will have unique abilities, and having the wrong item may cost you. Adapting your builds before the boss fight is the way to ensure success.
If you face a new boss and lose, you can take notes and find a build that will work against it. The compendium shows your statistics against a boss, their stats, and their abilities.
Music & Art
Art direction in He is Coming relies on pixel graphics. Its minimalist approach adds more atmospheric weight than many high-budget games. Environments include corrupted forests and haunted ruins. The palette leans into grays, dark greens, and blood reds.
Character designs are similarly effective. Player avatars are simple but expressive. Enemy designs are macabre, featuring exaggerated proportions and unnatural movements that show menace without needing elaborate animations.
The soundtrack plays a subtle but powerful role. Soft ambient tones build suspense, gradually growing louder and more complex in combat scenarios. Sound effects are somewhat basic, but they match the minimalist tone.
Replayability & Progression
As with any great roguelite, He is Coming excels at replayability. Procedural generation is used not just for levels, but also for enemy placements and loot drops. This means each run is genuinely unique, forcing you to adjust strategies every time.
The progression system offers a satisfying sense of growth. New weapons and items can be unlocked based on in-game achievements and exploration, allowing long-term customization while keeping each run dependent on player performance.
There’s no singular path to success, just experimentation and adaptation. After defeating a boss, the player gets two more item slots, and the maximum is eight slots. You cannot sell items to a merchant, but you can replace items or combine 2 of the same items.
After receiving feedback about item RNG, the devs added a banish ability allowing the player to remove an item appearing in future treasure chests and heroes’ graves. You get three banishes per run, so use them wisely. This feature is only available in single-player mode.
In addition, there is a system to increase the drop rate of certain items depending on which ones you already have equipped, which allows for fewer unrelated items to appear. This increases your chance to build a synergistic build and reduces frustration.
The game also rewards curious players. There are secret bosses that drop mythic items, and the player needs to plan ahead. If the player is willing to test their build, you can face a mini boss, but if you lose, you need to restart.
Itemsets are discovered by having similar themed items at the same time. Woodland and Swampland have different item sets, and the player can reference a guide to unlock them with more ease.
Kingmaker Mode
This is the PVP mode, where you face other real opponents via a king-of-the-hill style. There are 2 sets – woodland and swamp if you have beaten both bosses. This gives players who have beaten both biomes an advantage since they can mix and match set items.
If you beat all opponents, you get a crown. After collecting a certain amount of crowns, you will unlock cosmetic skin to show your skills and brag to your friends.
Unfortunately, players who unlock most of the best items will dominate in this mode. Balance for the mode has been hit-or-miss because certain builds and item sets are harder to counter. After the community finds strong builds, the Kingmaker meta can be stale, featuring certain reliable builds, leading to less experimentation.
Design & Technical Performance
For an indie game, He is Coming feels incredibly polished. The UI is minimal and intuitive, menus load quickly, and transitions between rooms are snappy. Enemy animations and AI behaviors function reliably even during high-intensity moments. There is an ability to skip fight scenes as well for quicker runs.
Loading times are brief, and controller support is seamless for those who prefer gamepads. Best of all, the game doesn’t overwhelm players with grind or unnecessary padding. It respects your time while still offering deep replay value.
Achievements:
With the latest patch, there are 22 Steam achievements. After beating the two main bosses and trying Kingmaker mode, I earned 14 achievements in 18 hours. For most players, they will get 10-15 hours of enjoyment, and extra time will be spent unlocking the hidden item sets for both maps, swampland and woodland.
Future Potential & Long-Term Appeal:
While He is Coming already offers a fully immersive experience, the game is still in early access. There’s room for more biomes, additional bosses, and even multiplayer experimentation.
The foundation is solid enough to support ambitious growth, and its current systems are open for more content. After the game is fully released, a new biome called Darkland will be added. A development roadmap was recently released, providing players with a timeline for future updates.
Conclusion:
He is Coming is a rewarding game, one that manages to feel challenging and exhilarating. With its minimalist combat and retro art direction, it earns a spot among the most compelling entries in the roguelike genre.
If you’re looking for a strategic game that involves trial and error with interesting bosses to defeat, you should try it out. It has a very positive review rating with over 1,500 Steam reviews. Check out the game here.
