DeathSpank arrived on the PlayStation Network on July 13, 2010, with the Xbox 360 version following a day later on Xbox Live Arcade. Hothead Games developed it. Electronic Arts published it. Ron Gilbert and Clayton Kauzlaric created it, and that last detail is the one that explains everything else about the game.
Gilbert built his reputation on Monkey Island, and Kauzlaric was his long-time creative partner. DeathSpank first appeared as a character in animated comics the two men made for Gilbert’s Grumpy Gamer website, and the game carries that origin in its bones. It is a comedy that happens to be an action role-playing game, or an action role-playing game that keeps interrupting itself to tell jokes. Either way, the jokes are the point.
Trailer, via IGN.
A Hero Named DeathSpank and an Artifact Nobody Explains
The premise is deliberately thin. DeathSpank has spent uncounted years as a Dispenser of Justice, a Vanquisher of Evil and a Hero to the Downtrodden. He has searched his whole life for a powerful object called The Artifact. It was forged by unknown hands for unknown purposes at some unknown time in the past. What is The Artifact? The game asks that question and takes its time answering, because the question is funnier than any answer.
The setting is a fantasy medieval world. DeathSpank travels with a wizard named Sparkles. The story opens with The Artifact just out of reach. Unable to claim it, DeathSpank meets a local witch who offers help in exchange for his services. He gathers the items she wants and eventually gets The Artifact.
The victory does not last. A group of henchmen serving the evil Lord Von Prong steals The Artifact and all of DeathSpank’s equipment. He walks to a nearby town, earns new weaponry from the townsfolk by doing good deeds, and sets his sights back on The Artifact and Von Prong. After a long journey and a pile of side quests, he faces Von Prong and defeats him. The game ends with a prelude to its sequel.
Diablo Combat With a Justice Meter
Combat is the Diablo comparison, and it is not a lazy one. Players collect armor and weaponry, each piece carrying different abilities and attributes. Attacks chain into combos, and each hit in a combo deals more damage than the last. Landing hits fills DeathSpank’s Justice Meter. When the meter is full, the player can unleash more powerful attacks for a limited time.
That loop is simple, and it holds up because the game never asks it to carry more weight than it can. The fights are short. The rewards come fast. The game is designed to be played in short segments, and it has three difficulty levels to match. A full run takes about 8 to 12 hours, depending on the choices a player makes along the way.
The quest count is where the game shows its real shape. There are 33 quests required to advance the main plot and 79 side quests on top of them. Once the main game is finished, the player can return and clean up anything left undone. That is a lot of optional content, and the fact that it is optional is the right call.
Sparkles the Wizard and the Second Player
DeathSpank includes a local cooperative mode. The second player takes control of Sparkles the Wizard, who carries multiple spells that support DeathSpank, including a healing spell. It is a supporting role by design, not a second hero, and the game does not pretend otherwise.
Conversations with non-player characters are a large part of the experience. The dialog options are advanced, in the style of LucasArts’ Monkey Island series, and they do real work in unfolding the story. Talking to people leads to quests. Talking to people is also where most of the comedy lives.
The world itself is presented as a rotating cylinder, with a rounded element on the display, similar to Animal Crossing: Wild World. It mixes 2D and 3D props on 3D terrain. It renders without load screens as the player moves between areas. That last detail matters more than it sounds like it should. A game built for short sessions cannot afford to make players wait.
The Artifact, Lord Von Prong and a Story That Knows It Is Thin
The plot is a fetch quest wrapped around a fetch quest. DeathSpank wants The Artifact. The witch wants items. The townsfolk want good deeds. Von Prong wants what DeathSpank wants. None of it is complicated, and none of it is meant to be.
What makes it work is that the game never treats its own story as precious. DeathSpank is a misguided hero, and the game is comfortable with that. He is not on a journey of self-discovery. He is on a journey to get a thing, and the thing is called The Artifact because naming it anything else would require the game to care more than it does.
The sequel setup at the end is the clearest statement of intent. DeathSpank was originally supposed to be the first of a two-part series. The second half, DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, was first released on September 20, 2010. Gilbert described DeathSpank as “Act I” in the story and Thongs of Virtue as “Acts II and III.”
That plan changed. A third game was later announced, The Baconing, which dropped the protagonist’s name from its title. It was released on August 30, 2011. So the two-part series became a trilogy with a different name on the last entry, which is a very on-brand outcome for a game this comfortable with its own silliness.
Platforms, Dates and the Hard Numbers
- Release date (PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network): July 13, 2010
- Release date (Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade): July 14, 2010
- Release date (Microsoft Windows, via Steam): October 26, 2010
- Release date (Mac OS X, via Steam): December 14, 2010
- Developer: Hothead Games
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Creators: Ron Gilbert and Clayton Kauzlaric
- Main quests: 33
- Side quests: 79
- Playtime: about 8 to 12 hours
- Difficulty levels: 3
- Critic aggregate score: 7.9/10 (IGDB, 5 outlets)
What DeathSpank Gets Right
The writing is the reason to play. Gilbert and Kauzlaric built DeathSpank as a comic character first, and the game respects that history. The dialog system is borrowed from the adventure games Gilbert helped define, and it is used for comedy rather than for puzzle-solving. That is a real choice, and it pays off.
The combat is competent rather than remarkable. It borrows from Diablo, adds the Justice Meter, and gets out of the way. The armor and weapon variety gives players something to chase between conversations. The combo system rewards aggression without demanding precision.
The structure is the smartest thing here. A game with 33 required quests and 79 optional ones could easily become a slog. DeathSpank avoids that by being playable in short segments and by rendering its world without load screens. The rotating cylinder presentation keeps the world readable and keeps movement quick.
Where DeathSpank Comes Up Short
The Diablo comparison cuts both ways. DeathSpank’s combat is shallower than the game it borrows from, and the Justice Meter is a burst of power rather than a system with depth. Players who come for the fighting will find it thin.
The story is thin too, and the game knows it. That is fine for a comedy, but it means there is not much here for anyone who wants the quest for The Artifact to resolve into something. It resolves into a sequel hook.
The cooperative mode is limited. The second player is Sparkles, a support character with spells, not a second DeathSpank. That is a deliberate design choice, but it is also a narrow one.
The Verdict on DeathSpank
DeathSpank is a comedy that uses an action role-playing game as its delivery system, and it succeeds at that. The Gilbert and Kauzlaric pedigree is not marketing. The dialog, the quest structure and the short-session design all trace back to the adventure game tradition they came from.
The 7.9/10 aggregate score from five outlets is about right. This is not a game that reinvents either of its genres. It is a game that knows exactly what it is, does that thing well, and does not overstay its welcome. The 8-to-12-hour runtime is a feature, not a limitation.
What matters most is the confidence. DeathSpank never apologizes for being silly, never pads its runtime, and never pretends The Artifact is more than a mysterious object nobody explains. It is a game about a misguided hero doing good deeds for new weapons, and it is funny the whole way through.
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