This Brazilian roguelike is a 'brutal test against history's oppressors' where you can battle the perpetrators of a 19th century atrocity with AoE knife magic

Hell Clock is a roguelike that's aiming to pack a Path of Exile league's worth of build progression into a minutes-long run. It's a compelling pitch, and based on the sheer density of unlockable, upgradeable mechanics and systems for carving through undead hordes I found in my time with a preview build, it's making an admirable effort. But when I looked at the game's Steam page, it was the premise that grabbed me.

Hell Clock calls itself "a brutal test against history's oppressors," where you'll "face the demons of Brazil's dark past, present, and future." It's a dark fantasy retelling of the late 19th century War of Canudos, where the military forces of the newly-formed Brazilian Republic killed as many as 25,000 inhabitants of the backcountry community in its effort to consolidate control in the wake of slavery's abolition and an overthrown monarchy.

According to a press release, the War of Canudos is "deeply personal and important" to the staff of Hell Clock's Brazilian development studio, Rogue Snail. It's heavy stuff, even when the game reimagines the massacre as a "secret battle between Heaven and Hell," where the Republic military commanders and their wealthy supporters have unleashed an undead horde with their atrocities.

It works better than you might expect: After blasting apart a hellish merchant boss who'd declared that "the law was on his side," player character Pajeú stood over his corpse and said in righteous Brazilian Portuguese that "law is not justice," as many have been "enslaved and exploited by the laws of men." And then I went into the next room and exploded four dozen zombies with an enchanted revolver and a regenerating spray of magic AOE knives.

That hits, for me.

As for how all that zombie slaying plays, Hell Clock handles fast and bloody. After equipping a selection of abilities at the start of a run, my goal is to carve through as many floors of zombies and miscellaneous hellspawn as possible before the time on my cursed pocketwatch runs out and I'm ripped back to the hub.

My ability loadout of choice saw me shooting through zombies with a fan-shaped split shot from my revolver. For enemies that got close, I had a set of regenerating knives that automatically launch at approaching foes. As I descended through waves of undead, I found a relic that increased my movement speed with every knife that hit an enemy, turning my runs into mad sprints of bullets and flying razorblades.

Those relics are one of the many upgradeable progression layers that revealed themselves across my runs. Pajeú has unlockable ability sets, a passive skill tree, ability-modifying relics with upgradeable stats, randomized blessings that you gather with each level-up during a run, and more. It's a dense web of buildcrafting options, and I'm eager to see the full extent.

Hell Clock releases on June 18.