Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse Review | A Roguevania With a Great Hat

Pocketpair made its name with Palworld, a game that combined familiar ideas in unexpected ways. Their publishing arm is chasing the same formula with Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, a roguelike metroidvania where you throw your hat at enemies and steal their bodies. It sounds ridiculous. It works surprisingly well.

What Is Never Grave?

Developed by Frontside 180 and published by Pocketpair Publishing, Never Grave launched March 4, 2026 on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch with full cross-play support. It costs $16.99.

You play as a witch exploring procedurally generated dungeons, armed with magic spells and a cursed hat that can possess defeated enemies. Between runs, you return to a village hub where collected resources fund permanent upgrades. Think Dead Cells meets Hollow Knight with a base-building loop on top.

What Works

The possession mechanic is the star. Defeat an enemy, toss your hat onto its body, and suddenly you are playing as that enemy with its full health bar and moveset. It is not just a gimmick. Possessing a heavy knight gives you a damage sponge for a tough room. Grabbing a flying enemy lets you skip platforming sections. The system adds genuine tactical depth to every encounter.

The art direction is gorgeous. Frontside 180 nails a soft-gothic aesthetic with detailed pixel art and fluid animations. Environments shift from overgrown ruins to eerie underground lakes, each with distinct visual identity. The witch’s movement is responsive and precise, which matters enormously in a game that asks you to dodge, jump, and possess mid-combat.

Village building creates meaningful progression. Resources from each run feed into permanent upgrades: new spells, stat boosts, crafting recipes, and even a cooking system. Unlike roguelikes where failure feels wasted, every run in Never Grave contributes something. The grid-based building system is simple but satisfying.

The price is right. At $16.99 (currently 10% off at launch), you get a substantial amount of content. Multiple difficulty settings range from a relaxed “easy” mode to genuinely punishing challenges. Cross-platform co-op supports up to four players, adding significant replay value.

Room to Grow

Runs start feeling samey. The procedural generation does not produce enough variety between attempts. Your main weapon stays the same across runs. Only spells and tools change. After a dozen hours, the corridors start blurring together. Dead Cells solved this problem with wildly diverse weapons. Never Grave has not found that solution yet.

Possession controls feel stiff. While the witch handles beautifully, possessed enemies move with noticeably less precision. The tradeoff between power and control is intentional, but it can frustrate in platforming-heavy sections where tight movement matters.

Co-op matchmaking is missing. The game supports four-player online co-op with cross-play, which is great on paper. In practice, there are no public lobbies or random matchmaking. You need a password to join someone’s game. If you do not have friends playing Never Grave, the co-op features might as well not exist.

The story is barely there. Minimal dialogue and unhelpful NPCs make the narrative hard to follow. For a game with this much visual personality, the story fails to match. You will not remember why you are descending into these dungeons.

Who Is This For?

If you enjoy the metroidvania genre and want something new at a budget price, Never Grave delivers. The possession mechanic alone justifies the cost of entry. It is not as tight as Hollow Knight and not as replayable as Dead Cells, but it carves out its own space between the two.

Solo players who want variety in their roguelike loops may bounce off after 15 to 20 hours. Groups of friends with $17 each will get considerably more mileage. If the Dead Cells team’s Castlevania project is on your radar, Never Grave is worth playing while you wait.

The Bottom Line

Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse has a fantastic core mechanic in its possession system, beautiful art, and a price point that makes it easy to recommend. The repetitive run structure and missing co-op matchmaking hold it back from the top tier, but Frontside 180 has built a strong foundation. If post-launch updates address the weapon variety and matchmaking gaps, this could grow into something special.

For now, it is a good roguelike metroidvania at a great price. That is enough.