33 Immortals preview: A multiplayer game that feels great to play solo

Playing 33 Immortals for the first time is like going to a party at a coworker’s friend’s house. The first few minutes are marked by curiosity, light suspicion and a constant hum of awkwardness, but as you mingle, the strangers become less intimidating and you start to feel like you’re a part of the flow of the night. You might even make some friends of your own. The main difference is that, with 33 Immortals, you never have to take off your fuzzy slippers.

I’m not kidding about flow when it comes to 33 Immortals. I fell into the game’s rhythm about 15 minutes into my three-hour preview, and by the end, I was shepherding small groups of lost souls across Inferno like I worked for Satan himself. In its simplest terms, 33 Immortals is like a multiplayer Hades, though its world is based on the lore of Dante’s Divine Comedy rather than Greek myth. Its vibe is also a tad more wholesome than Hades — maybe more crowd-ple...