Poncle shadowdrops keyboard-smashing hack and slash Berserk or Die on PC

It’s not just Palworld developer Pocketpair: Vampire Survivors developer Poncle is joining the publishing business as well and its first project is playable on PC right now: Berserk or Die, a hack and slash game with an innovative control layout, has been shadowdropped on Steam.

The keyboard-destroying action title has been developed by Japanese solo dev Nao Shibata, who runs as Nao Games on Steam.

Shibata wanted to create something entirely new and unique with this game and was able to garner the attention of Poncle’s founder, Luca Galante, during the latter’s trip to BitSummit in Japan. Galante played Berserk or Die at the event and knew he had to support it somehow, saying that “Nao shares the Poncle spirit.”

Berserk or Die puts the player into the shoes of a lone soldier on an endless battlefield who’s beset by waves of enemies. However, there is only one way for players to actually move their character on this field of slaughter — by attacking. 

And by attacking, the game means hitting as many buttons on your keyboard as possible, as quickly as possible, which increases your character’s damage output. There isn’t really a goal aside from surviving, though players may want to go easy on their keyboards and fingers as a personal side quest of sorts.

Berserk or Die does support regular controllers and accessibility controllers as well, so even non-keyboard warriors can enjoy themselves in this neverending battle. The game also had music from Vampire Survivors composer Filippo Vicarelli.

Between hitting their keyboard to attack and shaking their mouse to activate special moves, players can purchase power-ups and healing items from the merchant or learn new attacks at the training ground — but there are mere intermezzos in the endless orgy of pixel violence Nao Shibata has concocted.

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