Arms of God is basically Doom reimagined as a roguelite bullet heaven, and it already feels fantastic in Early Access
Another day, another bullet heaven, and yes, I kinda love this one too. Arms of God knows exactly what kind of power fantasy it wants to deliver. It throws you into gothic arenas as a badass templar warrior with mechanical arms bursting out of his back, then lets you wield up to five weapons at once while waves of demons charge straight into the meat grinder. The movement is grounded but snappy, the weapons have weight, enemies collapse in gory explosions, and every run quickly builds toward that perfect bullet-heaven state where the screen is full of death and somehow you are still in control of it.
The Doom comparison is obvious, but it is also earned. Not because Arms of God plays like a first-person shooter, obviously it does not, but because it understands aggression, gore, speed, and metal-fueled excess in a way that instantly clicks. Demons do not just vanish when they die. They burst apart, ragdoll, splatter blood everywhere, and sell the impact of every shot, slash, explosion, and elemental effect. A lot of bullet heavens become satisfying through pure numbers, and Arms of God has plenty of that, but here the violence itself has texture.
The weapon system is the main reason the loop stays exciting. You can carry five weapons at once, and the game gives you a ridiculous amount of toys to play with. Guns, melee weapons, holy tools of destruction, weird attachments, elemental effects, buffs, and stat-shifting upgrades all feed into each other. After each short level, you go to a shop and spend currency on new weapons, attachments, and blessings.
Blessings are basically stat boosts, but attachments are where the game really starts flexing. They do not feel like boring percentage bumps. They can change how a weapon fires, what kind of damage it applies, how often it triggers effects, and how much chaos it creates once the arena fills up. A weapon that starts as a reliable tool can become something far stranger and nastier after a few good purchases.
Then there is merging, which is one of my favorite parts of Arms of God. If you combine two of the same weapon, you get a stronger version, but you can also merge different weapons together, transferring stats from one into another while freeing up a weapon slot. I am not just buying whatever has the biggest number. I am thinking about what can be folded into my current build, what can be sacrificed, and what might open space for something better.
Movement keeps up with the chaos too. Different character variants have their own flavor, and the defensive tools make a big difference. Dodges, short teleports, and positioning choices matter because this is not just a passive circle-strafing game. You still need to read enemy pressure, reposition, and decide when to play aggressively or retreat.
The crux system gives each level an extra tactical layer. At the start of a stage, your character plants a huge cross in the arena, and it pulses with a radius that can buff you while you stand inside it. If you collect enough souls during the level, you can upgrade the crux when the stage ends, making that safe-ish zone even more valuable. Staying near the pulse can make you stronger, but the arena does not always let you sit comfortably in one place.
Runs culminate in boss fights, and this is the one part I am slightly mixed on. The bosses look cool and the encounters are tense, but the win condition can be a little too forgiving. You can either kill the boss or survive long enough for the encounter to end. I understand why that exists, especially in a roguelite where bad builds can happen, but I would have preferred the game forcing me to actually kill the boss to secure the run.
As it stands, you can sometimes keep distance, dodge around, and let the timer do the hard work. It is not enough to seriously hurt the game, but it does soften the climax. After spending a run becoming a divine blender of bullets, blades, and explosions, I want the final test to demand a kill, not simply reward endurance.
Outside individual runs, meta progression is tied to rebuilding a cathedral, and that fits the whole crusader-against-hell theme perfectly. Different areas of the cathedral unlock permanent upgrades for your knights, giving you reasons to keep pushing even when a run goes wrong. It is familiar roguelite structure, but the presentation sells it.
Visually, Arms of God looks great. It is dark, gothic, bloody, and clearly inspired by hellish shooter imagery without feeling like a cheap imitation. Enemy readability is solid even when the screen gets busy, and the arenas have enough atmosphere to support the premise without slowing down the action.
It also sounds badass in exactly the right way. The music has that heavy, Mick Gordon-y rage to it, all pounding riffs and aggressive energy that makes every wave feel even more violent. When the weapons are firing, demons are exploding, and the soundtrack is tearing through your speakers, Arms of God becomes ridiculously pumpy. It pushes you to play harder, dodge tighter, and chase that feeling of becoming an unstoppable holy murder machine.
On the ROG Xbox Ally X, it runs fantastically. Once a build starts popping off, the screen fills with projectiles, enemy bodies, effects, blood, and currency pickups very quickly, but I did not run into performance problems that got in the way of playing. The handheld form factor fits the structure beautifully.
Arms of God is still an Early Access game, and it is fair to expect more content, balance passes, characters, modes, weapons, and polish over time. But the important part is already here. The core combat feels excellent. The weapon and attachment systems are exciting. The gore and presentation give it a strong personality. The meta progression gives it a long-term hook. Most importantly, it understands the delicious moment where you stop feeling threatened and start feeling like the threat. Even at this stage, it is one of the best bullet heavens I have played to date, and an easy recommendation if you want a dark, violent, build-heavy autoshooter. Thanks for reading!
