When you think of hack-and-slash games, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Is it isometric RPGs like Diablo, stylish action games like Devil May Cry, or maybe even old-school table-top games like Dungeons & Dragons? Somehow, the genre encompasses all of these games and more, with very little in common.
The Original Hack-and-Slash Games
The “hack-and-slash” genre is almost as old as gaming itself, yet no one can agree on what it actually means. For some, it’s a generic term for any action game with swords and slashing. For others, it’s a highly specific breed of retro game that is rarely seen today. Whatever the case may be, the hack-and-slash genre is one of gaming’s most confusing categories, and it might be time to narrow the definition or abandon the term for good.
If you’re a fan of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), you might have already heard of the hack-and-slash genre—though not necessarily in the context of video games. Hack-and-slash was originally an unofficial term for fantasy TTRPG campaigns with a heavy emphasis on combat and dungeon-crawling. Basically, think of any Dungeons & Dragons campaign in which you spend more time attacking than talking. Since these campaigns were all about hacking and slashing through monsters (unless you play a magic user, but that’s besides the point), the name stuck around for many TTRPG players.
The hack-and-slash genre eventually reached video games with the rise of early computer RPGs, which had been heavily inspired by (or, in some cases, directly adapted from) their TTRPG predecessors. Initially, these games co-opted the hack-and-slash label to denote their similar gameplay, but it didn’t take long before they outgrew their tabletop influences with the formation of entirely new genres, such as JRPGs and roguelikes. Eventually, RPG video games dropped the hack-and-slash moniker entirely, though it wouldn’t be long before the name took on a brand-new meaning.
2D Action Games Took Over the Hack-and-Slash Genre
For many gamers who grew up in the 80s, the hack-and-slash genre was a staple of arcades and a home to some of the most infamously difficult games of all time. Of course, the hack-and-slash games I’m talking about looked nothing like the TTRPGs or early RPG games that started the genre.
During this time, hack-and-slash became synonymous with 2D action-platformers like Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Strider. These games test your ability to run and jump across high-speed levels while cutting down enemies from every angle. Although you sometimes had projectile weapons to fend off foes, your main weapon was usually a short-ranged blade capable of delivering quick slashes. These hack-and-slash games were considerably faster and brutally difficult compared to most other 2D platformers, and you’ve probably heard horror stories about the original Ninja Gaiden‘s endlessly respawning enemies or Shinobi‘s mean-spirited level design. It’s always been a divisive genre, but early hack-and-slash games delivered a uniquely intense challenge that you rarely see in modern releases.
Despite featuring more slashing than hacking, the early 2D action-platformers are still icons of the hack-and-slash genre. Recently, these retro hack-and-slash games have seen a resurgence with franchise revivals like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Shinobi: Art of Vengenace.
Action RPGs Brought Stats Back to Hack-and-Slash
The earliest action role-playing games (ARPGs) were often seen as simplified versions of their turn-based brethren. Games like Hydlide, Xanadu, and Ys abandoned standard RPG menus for real-time combat, but most of these games were designed around raising stats rather than developing strategies or honing your skills.
This changed with Diablo, which not only redefined ARPGs in the eyes of most players, but quickly usurped 2D platformers as the new face of the hack-and-slash genre. Diablo and Diablo II struck the perfect balance between the stat-based character-building of TTRPGs and the bloody action that gamers associated with the genre. And unlike many earlier ARPGs, understanding the combat mechanics and managing your stats are equally essential to overcoming their toughest challenges.
Personally, Diablo has always been the first game I picture whenever I think of the hack-and-slash genre. Sure, it’s got a healthy mix of both hacking and slashing, but there’s more to it than just the name. These games are proper evolutions of the genre’s tabletop origins, taking all the recognizable RPG tropes and blending them with the nonstop action that the genre is now known for. Even if you weren’t already familiar with the genre’s convoluted history, I’d still argue that Diablo is worthy of claiming the hack-and-slash genre for itself.
The Rise of 3D Hack-and-Slash Games
The hack-and-slash genre saw another transformation with the birth of 3D action games, becoming the go-to label for pretty much every action game that lets you swing a sword around. This still included pre-existing hack-and-slash games like action-platformers and ARPGs, but it also led to a heap of other, unrelated categories getting lumped into the genre.
This trend first began with character-action games like Devil May Cry and God of War. Unlike most other hack-and-slash genres, these games aren’t strictly about defeating as many enemies as possible or simply reaching the end of a level. Instead, character-action games encourage you to use flashy combos and an expansive arsenal of weapons to wipe out enemies with style, whether that means raising a combo meter or pulling off the most unnecessarily bombastic combos imaginable. Although you could argue that their gameplay boils down to hacking and slashing, the mechanics and basic appeal of these games are completely different from anything else in the hack-and-slash genre.
In the same vein, hack-and-slash games can also refer to anything from the musou genre, which includes games like Dynasty Warriors and Persona 5 Strikers. These games blend military strategy with over-the-top action as you mow through thousands of enemies on massive battlefields while leading an army through various obstacles and objectives. To be fair, most musou games share some similarities with character-action games and Diablo-style ARPGs, often blending the flashy combat of the former with the high enemy-counts of the latter. However, that’s where the similarities to other hack-and-slash games end, as you’ll find almost nothing in common between musou games and the earlier TTRPGs or 2D action-platformers.
More recently, the hack-and-slash label has started to include medieval combat games like Mordhau and Chivalry. For these games, the hack-and-slash naming scheme refers to the broad range of historical weaponry you can wield to hack and slash your opponents to pieces. That might sound like every other game in the genre, but once again, the mechanics and objectives are completely different.
Combat in these games is slow and weighty, with an emphasis on maintaining a strong defense while performing single strikes. Unlike the other games I’ve mentioned, you won’t be dishing out a flurry of combos, fighting hordes of enemies, or moving around high-speed levels. Even though the hack-and-slash name is still a good fit for these games, their inclusion only adds to the genre’s current identity crisis.
The Problem With Hack-and-Slash Games
Gaming genres don’t always have to adhere to a single definition, but they need at least one clear element that sets them apart from every other genre. For example, racing games can range from wacky kart racers like Mario Kart, to realistic driving sims like iRacing, to whatever you want to call Crazy Taxi. Despite their differences, all racing games are about reaching a goal as fast as possible, regardless of whether you’re racing against the clock or other players. Likewise, every fighting game is about learning a moveset to overcome your opponents, and every flavor of shooter can be boiled down to the same basic mechanics of aiming and shooting.
At best, the hack-and-slash genre can be defined as games in which melee weapons are your primary means of attacking. But by that logic, would that mean The Legend of Zelda, Assassin’s Creed, and Minecraft are also hack-and-slash games? In the same way that Disco Elysium isn’t a shooter and Punch Out isn’t a beat ’em up, I personally don’t consider any of these games to be a hack-and-slash, but you might feel differently.
So let’s return to the original question: What is a hack-and-slash game? As a genre, it’s one of the most overly broad and unnecessarily confusing categories in gaming history. Despite that, it’s stuck around for decades and continues to be thrown around whenever a brand-new action game is unveiled. It’s too broad to have a concrete meaning, yet too specific to fit alongside other general categories like “action” and “puzzle” games.
If anything, the hack-and-slash genre is a relic of a simpler time in gaming history. It debuted when most video games consisted of short and simple experiences; when games like Asteroids and Space Invaders could be lumped together as “shooters,” while Pitfall and Adventure could just as easily be considered—well—”Adventure” games. The hack-and-slash genre was similarly straightforward, as it exclusively referred to tabletop-inspired RPGs and MUDs like Rogue and MUD1. However, as all of these genres evolved in both their complexity and variety, new subgenres were created to differentiate all the new types of games.
This confusing genre ended up being a unique case. Rather than ditching or relegating it a broad genre label, players kept inventing new definitions for the hack-and-slash games—probably because the name was too cool to leave in the past (though that’s just speculation). While this has transformed the genre into a poorly defined mess, it’s also shaped it into a fascinating part of gaming history.
Even today, many people still refer to certain TTRPG campaigns as “hack-and-slash,” just as they apply the same label to modern action games. The history of hack-and-slash games is more convoluted than any other genre, but that also means it’s never stayed in one place for too long.
More so than other mediums, video games often struggle to fit into one category, and those categories rarely have just one simple definition. That’s because video games are constantly evolving and building upon the ideas of the past. Sometimes, that leads to iconic genres like shooters and racing games, which have refined and updated the same core mechanics across multiple decades. Other times, we get hack-and-slash games and other convoluted genres with too many different meanings for their own good.
Even with all the questions and confusion surrounding the hack-and-slash genre, it will always be home to some of the best games ever made. With that said, maybe we should start thinking of better names for all the different varieties of hack-and-slash.