Software:Orcs Must Die!

Short description: 2011 video game

Orcs Must Die!
Developer(s)	Robot Entertainment
Publisher(s)	WW: Robot Entertainment EU: Mastertronic (PC)
Series	Orcs Must Die!
Engine	Vision
Platform(s)	Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows
Release	XBLA October 5, 2011 Windows / OnLive NA: October 12, 2011 EU: July 13, 2012
Genre(s)	Tower defense, action

Orcs Must Die! is an action-tower defense video game developed and published by Robot Entertainment and Mastertronic. It is a tower defense game that eschews the traditional top-down view of similar games, instead using a third-person action-oriented viewpoint. The game was released for Xbox Live Arcade and Windows PCs in October 2011.

Gameplay

Placing defenses in the game

Orcs Must Die! is a variant of a tower defense game; the player as the War Mage must defend one or more Rifts on each level from an onslaught of orcs and other creatures that emerge from one or more entrances and traverse the level. Generally, each orc that reaches a Rift deducts a point from the starting Rift Score while specialized orcs may take off more points; if the Rift Score drops to zero, the level is lost and the player will have to start again.

The orc armies arrive in increasingly more difficult waves, with each level having between four and twelve waves. In general, waves will begin a few seconds after the player defeats the prior one, but roughly every three waves on all bar Nightmare difficulty, the player is given a break where they can set up traps and initiate the next wave when they are ready.

As the War Mage, the player has the ability to place numerous traps and arm themselves with weapons and equipment to defeat the orcs. The player selects a number of traps and equipment (up to ten) from their current Spellbook; once the player starts placing traps they will be bound to this selection. Traps can be placed on any appropriate surface, but each trap costs in-game currency to place, and traps will have variable costs based on their effectiveness. Traps typically work once and then have a reset period before they will activate again. Such traps include floor, wall, and ceiling traps, and several Guardians that will act on their own accord. The player is given an amount of money to spend on trap placement at the start, and earns more by defeating the orcs and after completing waves; money can also be dropped by certain monsters that must be collected by the player. Traps can be placed at any time, including in combat, and between waves, placed traps can be removed and refunded for their cost. Later, the player gains access to Weavers, who for various costs can boost certain effects on the player or traps placed in the manner of a technology tree; these effects only last for that level.

Once the player initiates a wave, they can run about the level to participate in combat or place additional traps. The player must watch their health and mana used for their weapons but orcs may drop health and mana potions that will replenish these; alternatively the player can heal while in proximity of the Rift. If the player should lose all their health or fall off the level, they will respawn back at the Rift but this will cost them a number of Rift Points.

After defeating the last wave, the player is awarded a number of skulls, up to 5 (or on Apprentice difficulty, limited to two), based on their score (reflecting how many Rift points remain) and the time needed to defeat all the waves. Skulls are used to buy improvements to traps and weapons in the player's spellbook, such as increasing damage, reducing cost, or making them more effective against the orcs. The player, after completing each level the first time, is also rewarded with a new trap type for their Spellbook they can use in subsequent levels. These improvements remain with the player, so that they may return to earlier levels with these improved traps to earn more skulls.

Plot

In a fantasy world, civilization is dependent on magic that's used to bring the rains, cure the sick, erect enchanted fortresses, and so on, and which comes from rifts, openings leading to "the dead world of the orcs". The game takes place entirely within great fortresses built on the other side of the rifts, where incursions of the orcs, a race of murderous savages, are held at bay by an elite faction of wizards and warriors called the Order. The dregs of the Order are a cranky old master war mage who loathes his apprentice, dies in an accident in the opening cutscene, and takes up the role of narrating the game's cinematics, and his apprentice, a dim-witted egoist fool and the player character, who takes up his master's weapons and is known as the War Mage (voiced by Robert McCollum). The War Mage turns out to be a savant, tearing through force after force of attacking orcs (and ogres and gnolls, etc.) and having the time of his life. For example, he ends each successful level with a victory dance that grows more elaborate the better he performed, including doing the splits if the player is rated the full five skulls out of five.

As he defends fortress after fortress, the War Mage soon notes that the orc attacks are becoming more organized, striking where the Order's defenses are thin and incorporating creatures that had no business cooperating with orcs. He brushes it off as more to kill, but the orcs have turned from a mob into an invading army and the Order, who were always vastly outnumbered and had to rely on the disorder of their enemy, are gradually ground into the dirt offscreen leaving the War Mage as the only surivor.

The culprit is revealed to be the Sorceress (voiced by Colleen Clinkenbeard), a former paragon of the Order who betrayed it to seek personal power. She has mind controlled the orcs, and is trying to take them to the world of her origin to rule both worlds. She speaks in the War Mage's mind with threats, promises, taunts and attempts at seduction, and gets nowhere, the War Mage being more concerned with killing orcs. Eventually he concludes that his position is hopeless and uses magic to close the rifts, destroying all magic on both sides forever. In doing so he strands the Sorceress in the dead world of the orcs at the mercy of her enraged erstwhile slaves, gives up his dream job, and saves his world from the orcs but dooms it to decline. His master observes that the War Mage proved the only member of the Order able to bear the dire consequences of doing so to their world, and is left pondering whether he witnessed an act of supreme courage or supreme stupidity.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PC Xbox 360 Destructoid N/A 8.5/10 Eurogamer N/A 7/10 Game Informer N/A 8.5/10 GamePro N/A 4.5/5 GameSpot 7.5/10 7.5/10 GameSpy 4.5/5 N/A GameTrailers N/A 7.7/10 GameZone N/A 9/10 IGN 9/10 9/10 Joystiq N/A 4/5 OXM (US) N/A 8/10 PC Gamer (UK) 90% N/A 411Mania N/A 7.3/10 Aggregate score Metacritic 83/100 79/100

The game received "favorable" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Joystiq called the Xbox 360 version a "finely-tuned whirling chamber of death". IGN praised the length of the campaign as well as the combat system. It sold over 50,000 units on Xbox and substantially more on PC.

During the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Orcs Must Die! with "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year", along with receiving a nomination for "Downloadable Game of the Year".

Sequels

Main articles: Software:Orcs Must Die! 2, Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Orcs Must Die! 3, and Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap

Orcs Must Die! 2 was released on July 30, 2012. The sequel includes two-player co-op with the introduction of the Sorceress in a playable role. Orcs Must Die! Unchained, the third game in the series, was released on April 18, 2017 for the Windows platform, while the PlayStation 4 version was released on July 18. It was released under a free-to-play model.

Orcs Must Die! 3 was initially released on Stadia on July 14, 2020, and later for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Unlike previous games, which generally had a dungeon and tower defense design with limited pathways for enemies to attack from, Orcs Must Die! 3 features larger, open battlefields in a feature called "War Scenarios".

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, which features 4-player cooperative multiplayer and elements commonly found in roguelite games, was released in January 2025, for Windows and Xbox Series X/S.

External links

• Official website
• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions