New action-RPG with unusual 33-player co-op launches to “Very Positive” reviews on Steam with 33% launch discount in tow

Thunder Lotus Games‘ 33 Immortals is one of the more “actually” unusual multiplayer concepts to come out of indie development in years. The game has now officially launched into its full 1.0 version on Steam. The release dropped on June 10 across Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Store, capping a 15-month early access run and bringing the game’s complete three-world structure together for the first time.

The premise is quite straightforward on paper and equally bizarre in practice: up to 33 players simultaneously control damned souls rebelling against God’s final judgment. It draws inpsiration from the structure of Dante’s Divine Comedy as they fight through more and more punishing realms. What makes it work — or at least feel unlike anything adjacent to it — is the session design. Runs last roughly 25 minutes, use instant public matchmaking, and require no pre-formed groups, voice coordination, or scheduling. It’s basically raid-scale co-op gameplay compressed into a lunch break.

The lobby funnel is the smartest structural decision in the game. 33 players enter Inferno together, that number narrows to 22 in Purgatorio, and the newly added Paradiso realm — the final world, held back from early access and shipping at 1.0 — takes just 11 players into the game’s most concentrated, demanding finale. Of course, each shrinking group increases individual accountability without turning the game into your runt-of-the-mill team-based experience.

The 1.0 update also introduces a previously hidden ultimate boss encounter that Thunder Lotus kept under wraps throughout the entire early access period. It is accompanied by deep character customization, weapon and enemy balance tuning, and quality-of-life improvements shaped by over a year of community feedback.

Steam’s absence during early access was a calculated bet, not exactly an oversight. A co-op game requiring 33 simultaneous players per session faces a very obvious structural risk: too small an installed base and sessions will simply never fill. Game Pass inclusion from day one — March 18, 2025 — got the title a reliable player-base while the other organic base grew on Epic and Xbox. Adding Steam only at 1.0, with a mature player pool already in place, likely helped the devs go around the dead-lobby problem that has killed several multiplayer indie launches in the past.

All platforms share a single cross-play matchmaking pool, so Steam players can directly join the same sessions as Epic and Xbox users. The game is also available through Xbox Game Pass at no additional cost.

For context, Thunder Lotus is the Montreal-based studio behind Spiritfarer. It attracted over seven million players worldwide and built 33 Immortals as its first title designed completely around online multiplayer. You can read more about the game here – it’s purchasable for $9.97, thanks to a 33% launch discount.

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Anubhav Sharma – Tech Writer – 1667 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024

Most of my time goes into writing – and somehow it hasn’t stopped being fun yet.
My work mainly revolves around everyday tech, gaming, watches, DIY modding, and the occasional piece on tech-policy chaos when companies and governments clash. I try to keep things simple and honest, without sounding like a product brochure.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering and an Associate Degree in English Studies from the College of New Caledonia in British Columbia, Canada.
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