Devil Daggers turns 10: only 1,472 players have survived 500 seconds, and a sequel is now confirmed

Ten years ago, the indie survival FPS Devil Daggers had gaming outlets around the world hooked. The concept is about as stripped-back as it gets: you stand on a flat, featureless arena and beat back increasingly horrifying waves of eldritch enemies using magical daggers, for as long as you possibly can.

That description doesn't quite do justice to how addictive Devil Daggers actually is. Chris Thursten, who named it his favorite game of 2016, put it best:

"It's Pure Quake, basically. It is to Quake what the blue meth in Breaking Bad is to regular meth, except it's real."

To mark the 10th anniversary, developer Sorath shared some impressive stats: over 350,000 people have played Devil Daggers in total, but only 1,472 of them have managed to survive 500 seconds without dying even once. Given the size of the player base, that's a genuinely rare achievement.

The big news, though, is that a sequel has been officially announced.

"Today seems like a good day to announce that we are working hard on Devil Daggers II,"

Sorath wrote. No further details about the sequel have been shared.

Since Devil Daggers, Sorath has released one other game – Hyper Demon, which shares a similar genre but sports a visual style that feels like a lost era somewhere between Quake and Quake 2. It's disorienting in the best possible way, and watching someone play it looks less like a game and more like a psychedelic demoscene visual. Hyper Demon also received a free 1v1 mode.