Skull Horde is a necromantic auto-battler from the makers of Bore Blasters

Skulls for the skull horde

I'd rather command a small troop of ruthless husks to fight my battles than do the dirty work myself - and in the game [Weyyyyyy! -RPS staff]. That's reason number one as to why I'm interested in Skull Horde, an "auto battler dungeon crawler" which casts you as a necromancer in a tiny pixel art world.

Reason number two is that it's coming from the developers of the explosively moreish Bore Blasters. Find a teaser trailer below.

The teaser trailer is all cutscene, nothing in-game, sadly.

Skull Horde's fights take place in real-time, with your minions fighting for you autonomously. Your job is to choose where and when to explore and to make sensible decisions when upgrading your squad. You can purchase new units to build a troop of synergistic types, or buy multiples of the same unit to merge them into stronger versions, which eventually leads to unlocking special abilities. There's also obviously loot to be found in the dungeon via chests and shrines, which can further enhance or adapt your minions.

The necromancer you play as, by the way, is a flying skull. I like that.

I don't feel I have space in my life for an action-RPG anymore, at least not one of the Diablo or Path Of Exile variety. An auto battler with a more immediately rewarding dopamine drip, however, is compelling.

I'm encouraged after having spent last week playing Bore Blasters, (the appropriately named) 8BitSkull's previous game. It casts you as a dwarven ship captain drilling deeper underground in search of gems and upgrades and its power curve is a swiftly traversed straight line. It's theoretically a run-based roguelite, with progress carrying over between runs, but it has at least as much in common with incremental games, particularly To The Core. Alice B liked it too.

Skull Horde is aiming for release in 2025 and there are more dark screenshots over on Steam.